On Sunday, millions of Iraqis, in spite of a lack of overall security, left their homes to vote in a historic election derided by politicians and observers alike. On the same day and in reply, insurgents led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi—many of them loyal to the Iraqi wing of al Qaeda—killed 35 people in a bloody assault on both the… return to article
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Reader Comments (12)Page 1 of 1 pagesLet the Iraqis go
As with the election issues should be heard even if they don’t pass. My Issue web site includes:
07-14-04 The Hand-Over that Wasn’t
http://www.fpif.org/papers/0407iraqtransf.html. The Congress should give full control to the elected officials, removing the 5 year influence of the USA on heir government & economy. The Iroquois 5 Nation Constitution is a good reference. We should present a time table for withdrawal of our troops, which + can take months, but let the Iraqis tell us what areas their people can handle. As they are trained, Iraqis can replace our people in an ongoing but continual reduction.
This will show an end to any impression of occupation and reduce the effect of the propaganda of the opposition. It will also encourage help from the UN.
Posted by Mark Schindler on Jan 31, 2005 at 6:28 PM This election shows - clearly - what is going on. A bunch of thugs - many led by a terrorist - are attempting to hold hostage an entire country. They are now speaking their intentions clearly (democracy is our enemy, it is apostasy). The Iraqis are speaking their intentions clearly too - the voter turnout was extraordinary as were the stories of the voters.
I think the real fear of the left is that Iraq will succeed. Just as the fall of the Soviet Union came about from Reagans policies, the fall of a terrorist ruled country has now come. Those of us who love freedom, who believe the strong should not terrorize the weak, we should be very happy right now.
Can anyone here even imagine talking a Downs Syndrome child into becoming a suicide terrorist? Just par for the course on the “other” side. . .
Posted by justShows on Feb 1, 2005 at 11:04 AM Hi justShows,
a few things; first I seriously doubt anybody actively wishes Iraq to “fail”...that’s just nonsense. Secondly, The collapse of the USSR was because of Reagan’s policies? If you mean outspending them by tying up huge amounts of American capital in arms development, then yeah, I guess you’re right.
and lastly, any point you actually had is immediately negated by saying “those of us who love freedom” I mean c’mon!! There is not a single person in the world (save maybe an S&M;submissive) that “hates freedom”. Freedom is a tricky concept, what one person considers freedom another does not. Is freedom free healthcare or is it the freedom to choose between competing healthcare providers? Is it the freedom to choose between coke and pepsi? I’m sure that the Iranian’s that put the Ayatollah in power considered themselves free afterwards...(i personally don’t, but that’s sort of the point I’m trying to make).
If you want to make a valid point then please do so, please don’t trot out the hackneyed clichés of the Bush Regime…
another thing I was thinking about: Iraq’s population is around 25 million...roughly 7-8 million voted...when it’s put that way it doesn’t seem so resounding a victory for those that love freedom and liberty...not to detract from the fact that all things considered it was a pretty momentous occasion, but the overwhelming spin the media gave it reminds me of the infamous statue-toppling fiasco...i would love to see some balanced news in the mainstream media is all…
Posted by lefty canuck on Feb 1, 2005 at 3:35 PM Hi lefty canuck -
“Secondly, The collapse of the USSR was because of Reagan’s policies? If you mean outspending them by tying up huge amounts of American capital in arms development, then yeah, I guess you’re right.”
I agree. But i see this as hugely better than a hot war. Or even the continued cold war.
“and lastly, any point you actually had is immediately negated by saying “those of us who love freedom” I mean c’mon!!”
I was thinking of the wanna be dictators, like al Sadr. While most of us may wish for freedom, i am afraid that many do not - rather they wish to be kings.
“There is not a single person in the world (save maybe an S&M;submissive) that “hates freedom”. “
I wish i could agree, but as i say above it appears that many would rather rid there countries of freedon - IF they can then become kings. From what i can tell, that is the motivation of many of the insurgents in Iraq (but not all, of course).
“Freedom is a tricky concept, what one person considers freedom another does not. Is freedom free healthcare or is it the freedom to choose between competing healthcare providers?”
Point taken. However i think the issue is may be less nuanced. Freedom is being allowed to do what you wish without government interference. Thus prostitutes in the US are not really free, but bankers are, whether they be Jewish, Christian, atheist or Muslim. While no couutry is entirely free, one can imagine scales that rate them (with pre-war Iraq being very near the bottom of the scale, as was preWar Afghanistan ).
“I’m sure that the Iranian’s that put the Ayatollah in power considered themselves free afterwards”
Interesting assumtion. I suppose it depends on what you mean by them “putting Ayatollah in power”. It seemed more like the Ayatollah seized power from what i can tell.
“If you want to make a valid point then please do so, please don’t trot out the hackneyed clichés of the Bush Regime…”
Sorry. But i just talk that way. Nothing to do with Bush.
“roughly 7-8 million voted...when it’s put that way it doesn’t seem so resounding a victory for those that love freedom and liberty”
I disagree. As a fraction of those eligble to vote the number almost certainly exceeds the US elections (~60% for the US). (One thing to consider is that the population is **heavily** slanted toward the young, but i don’t have the demographics in front of me now.)
“...not to detract from the fact that all things considered it was a pretty momentous occasion, but the overwhelming spin the media gave it reminds me of the infamous statue-toppling fiasco...i would love to see some balanced news in the mainstream media is all… “
I think the statue-toppling event WAS momentuous and this is even more so. But only time will tell.
Thanks for you thoughtful response.
Posted by justShows on Feb 1, 2005 at 3:53 PM Both of you put forward interesting points, but i think you both are confusing the desired outcome with the real picture.
I would like both of you to consider a couple of points.
1. The toppling of Saddam’s statue was an staged event. Not only was it surprised to see the American Forces take down the statue, a lot of iraqi flags appeared out of nowhere as if people were carrying them around in their pockets.
2. It is expected for the Shi’ites to vote in the recent elections as they are a majority in Iraq and so are expected to vote to gain a majority within the Iraqi government.
3. It is well known, that the Kurds have longed for a Kurdistan. This raised the tensions between neighbouring countries such as Turkey, Greece and Iran. If you look at all polling stations attended and celebrated at by Kurds, you will notice that they flew the flag of Kurdistan and not Iraq. In fact, the majority (if not all) of the iraqi flags where flown by iraqi arabs. The Kurds are using the Iraqi elections as a gradualistic approach in establishing Kurdistan and having a generally autonomous northern state within Iraq clearly shows how Iraqi they really want to be.
4. The sunni muslims in any part of the world would never accept a democracy by choice. This is due to the fact that their main reference is to the Quran which doesn’t allow man-made laws. The US have shown intentions to ‘democratize’ the middle east which does not include any plans of actually removing any of the current rulers but staging an election to justify their standing.
5. The majority of sunni muslims in the middle east are eager to replace their rulers and want to return to a Caliphate type of system.
6. Muslims living in the west, who also have good links in the middle east, consider themselves as economic migrants. The integration of muslims into main-stream society has been of much discussion recently throughout the whole of Europe. Despite the ‘carrot and the stick’ approach presented by the governments, Muslims are still not considering societal norms as acceptable. This stems from their belief which forbids alcohol, gambling, relationships outside wedlock, homosexuality, etc. Should the situation in any part of world become more better, they would migrate in flocks.
7. Muslims in the middle east would never accept the concept of ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ because it will clash with their religion which is a very active part of their lifestyle.
8. Approximately 250,000 Iraqi ex-patriats live in the UK. Only 30,000 have registered to vote. In iraq, forms of ID had be be reduced from two to one to allow more people to vote. Other changes in proceedure also took place to ensure a successful election result.
9. The fact that many Iraqi ex-patriats were allowed to vote outside Iraq shows the desperation of the US-led coalition. I understand that there are Iraqi’s who have fled the country due to the war and should be given the right to vote; however, I also have personal contact with a lot of Kurds and Iraqi’s who have no intention of returning back to Iraq.
On a more personal note, when the west talks about ‘freedom’ they should use the word ‘compromise’ instead. The choices in the west are presented by the elected goverments which in most cases becomes a compromise for its citezens. The true nature of ‘freedom’ poses no restriction whatsoever thus allowing the individuals the right to do whatever, whenever, however - a concept that would never come into reality.
Just to set the record straight, I am against the invasion of Iraq for many reasons and am over-joyed to see Saddam removed. I hope the people of the middle east remove the rest of the puppet regimes in place.
I hope you find my comments useful and enlightening.
Thank you for your time.
Posted by Election Eye Witness on Feb 1, 2005 at 7:08 PM Has it occurred to anyone that the Iraqi people are in the habit, after years of intimidation, of voting for which every military power holds the reigns at any particular time. In other words they were so used to voting for Sadam for fear of reprisals that that is exactly what they are doing now with the American installed puppet government.
Posted by Matilda Gatsby on Feb 1, 2005 at 11:08 PM “I think the real fear of the left is that Iraq will succeed” says justShows. This is an accusation that war opponents have faced from the beginning, and will continue to. It’s an easy, cheap shot that every hawk can pull out when they want, and we need to go out of our way not to give them the opportunity.
Imagine any situation in which the country is deciding whether or not to follow a course of action. Pollyana crows, “If we follow Path X, good things will happen.” Cassandra warns, “If we follow Path X, bad things will happen.” Cassandra (of course) is ignored, and we follow Path X.
Assume Pollyana and Cassandra acted out of an equal degree of good intentions, and they have an equal mix of altruistic desires (the desire for good things to happen for everyone) and selfish desires (the unavoidable human desire to prove oneself right and ones’ opponent wrong).
Pollyana, now, has no conflict. Her altruistic desires and her selfish desires all want the same thing. When good things happen, she is able to crow about them, and laugh at Cassandra for being such a worry-wart. When bad things happen, however, she can claim that this is what Cassandra wanted to happen all along; she can even say it was all Cassandra’s fault. If she hadn’t been telling everyone that these bad things would happen, maybe they wouldn’t have.
Cassandra is in a difficult position. When things go badly, no one wants to hear her say “I told you so.” She is torn between a real sadness that these bad things have happened, and a selfish satisfaction at knowing everyone should have listened to her. And when good things happen, she is similarly torn. If she tries to point out that things might not be as good as Pollyana is claiming, she is accused of putting her desire to be right over her desire for what’s best for everyone.
For all those hawks that are laughing at this right now, I would propose a thought experiment. Imagine that everything had happened exactly the opposite of how it did. First, imagine the antiwar group had won the debate, and we hadn’t invaded Iraq. You would be enraged, and no doubt convinced that Saddam did have all the WMDs that Bush claimed he did. Might there not be a dark, hidden part of yourself that, in fact, hoped that it was true? Or even that Saddam might demonstrate it true, in the worst possible way, just to prove you right?
Now imagine that Saddam did have all those hundreds of tons of sarin and anthrax and so on, and that he gave some to some terrorist group that then committed an attack (presumeably on some big Blue-state city) that made 9-11 look like a playground shove. In the midst of your sadness for all the death and destruction, wouldn’t there be some grim satisfaction in knowing that if people had only listened to you, none of this would have happened?
The point I’m making is that every human wants things for different reasons, some of them noble, some of them selfish. To some degree it’s a cheap shot for hawks to accuse the antiwar crowd of wanting a disaster. Unfortunately, a lot of the antiwar people do things that make them deserve it (like Ted Kennedy and John Kerry recently).
So let me say something that I haven’t heard a war opponent say directly: Please God, if there is one (this is how agnostics pray), let the Iraqi people make us war opponents look like fools by starting a free and safe country. Please give Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld the opportunity to ridicule us endlessly for years in the future. Please let every soldier that’s there now come home safe without abandoning the country into anarchy. In short, please let me be proven wrong. I’d like to say that if it happens I’d celebrate it with 100% of my heart. But since I’m not Bhudda, I can’t. Nevertheless, I hope that’s what happens.
Posted by Jim Stewart on Feb 2, 2005 at 5:58 AM hi Election Eye Witness - thanks for your thought provoking views. Are you in fact in Iraq (as i think your name suggests)? My only real knowledge of Iraq comes from reading widely and the BBC news channel.
hi Jim Stewart - i agree with much of what you say. One question: if Pollyanna gets their agenda, how should Cassandra react? That is, it it useful to attempt to derail an ongoing war in process? It seems to me that before the war one can and should fight tooth and nail to oppose it, if they believe it is wrong or likely to be ineffective. But afterwards our choices become more constrained. At what poikt, if any, should the Cassandras begin to support such actions? Last comment - i do not think you are a typical person, either on the right of left. You seem to be too thoughtful for either side. . .
Posted by justShows on Feb 2, 2005 at 8:53 AM It confuses me to read Jim’s recent comment.
He is either hoping to see a positive humanitarian outcome to the war or he is politically naive; but I’m still not sure where he stands.
It would be politically naive for any country to go to war based on assumptions alone. From the assumption of a link with Al-Qaeeda to the assumption of WMDs.
Even prior to 9/11, America has always had interests in the middle east and especially Iraq and Iran, the only few countries not under American influence that have vast resources. They are also fairly closed markets and so American consumer goods were not entering those countries.
America before they went to war had objectives. Afganistan was about gas and Iraq is about oil. In fact, Iraq sits on 10% of the worlds oil reserves; somthing repeated by the Whitehouse over and over again - and the oil was not being exported from Iraq at the quantities desired.
The American plan is clear, Iraq has something they want and they would go about getting it. The first problem was the justification. Iraq was one of the countries strongly accused of 9/11 but this did not stick due to the lack of evidence and so Afganistan was blamed (an accusation based on circumstantial evidence, none of which would stand in any court of law).
Iraq was then accused of not just having links with Al-Qaeeda, but providing terrorist training camps. A point to note, all of Usama Bin Ladens videos and press releases condemn all the governments of the world and this included Saddams and so the Al-Qaeeda link was then rejected.
WMDs was an accusation that was started at the beginning of the 1990’s during the Bush Snr Administration who also wanted to invade Iraq (John Major being his British counterpart).
To cut a long story short…
American, with the aid of Britain went into Iraq for resources. A lot of the senior Iraqi generals, who also massacred the Iraqi people, switched sides prior to the recent invasion and are now protected by America - they are not on the deck of cards.
America’s objectives include:
- Secure oil fields;
- Stabalise country to secure trade relations;
- Legitamise a puppet govenment; and
- Make Iraq take out huge loans from the IMF and World Bank.It is worth looking into the character backgrounds of current interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and his oppossion to see how they are all linked to the U.S. and the Pentagon!
Further notes to take include how the international loans are being spent. During the tender of Iraqi contracts, Haliburton won with the most expensive bid. It may also come as a surprise that the haliburton group is owned by a consotium headed by Bush Snr with John Major as the European representative.
I would advise you to look at who is involved and what is being sought. This type of politics is a very dirty game.
I would like to finish with a statement made by a senior American official:
“America does not have friends or ememies, just interests.”
Posted by Election Eye Witness on Feb 2, 2005 at 7:01 PM Election Eye Witness -
Where I stand: I opposed this war at every step, and marched in pretty much every protest in DC and New York that went on both before the invasion and for awhile after. If I’ve been less active lately, it’s mostly because I have been too busy with work (I’m a high school teacher) rather than because I changed my POV.I may or may not be naive; it sounds like I know less about the situation than you but I read the news pretty extensively and don’t have any illusions about our motives for the invasion. I wrote this because I have been discouraged by what I have been hearing some people with similar opinions say about the elections. I feel as strongly as anyone that the Bush administration is one of the worst things to happen to America. But I can’t place my desire for him to fail above my desire for the Iraqi people to live in freedom.
It appears you are confusing what I hope will happen with what I think will happen. I deliberately left out what I think will happen because I wanted to avoid the typical “It’s great that they had an election but...” response that you are getting from most war opponents now. All those Iraqis who dipped their fingers in purple ink had real balls (burka’d women included); I don’t know if I would have risked it. Let’s just give them credit for five minutes or so without qualifying it. If things don’t work out, there will be plenty of time to talk about why.
JustShows:
I am familiar with your opinion, but I can’t agree. Why should we quit having opinions once a war starts? In a way, that’s not giving the country much credit; you’re implying that we are so weak that we will collapse if people don’t fall in line like robots. I think that what makes America strong is that everyone speaks out on what they think is right. Why should that be different in war time than peace time?Furthermore, I find this belief a little bit frightening. After all, if everyone had taken that attitude during Vietnam, we might still be there. And since Bush has laid out a War on Terror that is open ended and might last decades, then you’re implying no one should disagree with Bush and his successors for the next 20 to 30 years or so. Can you say North Korea?
Posted by Jim Stewart on Feb 3, 2005 at 8:46 PM I see the war as an error in judgement partly as a result of an administration knowing it was right. We have now passed to what the Iraqis and other Nations see as occupation and our way of returning part of the governmental powers supports that.
The older generation had some experience with democracy and aside from helping repair damage the war, and partly our method of occupation, caused. We should let the Iraqis run their country.
Namibia had lines a mile long to vote when South Africa let them go and the people of Iraq might have shown a similar eagerness to go their own way. Bravery was certainly shown by the voting. They have oil that the US wants control of so a conflict remains.
Posted by Mark Schindler on Feb 4, 2005 at 2:21 AM Actually the real fear of the left is that Iraq will not succeed and this will give cover to Bush and the Neocons to establish their permanent military bases and control the oil of the region. Regardless of whether Iraq succeeds in establishing democracy and avoiding civil war, the decision to invade was incorrect and based on lies. There were no WMD’s and this was fairly clear to the Bushies before the invasion (see “Uncovered: The War on Iraq” if you doubt this). There was no real relation to the events of 9/11.
So how can anyone really argue that in the aftermath of 9/11, when we really should have been going after Bin Laden and Al Qaeda with all that we had, that getting bogged down in a war to get free elections in Iraq was the right decision?! It is a ludicrous position to take.
Hopefully the elections are a sign that some good will come of this stupid decision, though that remains to be seen. As for the United States’ interests, no matter what happens, the idiotic decision will only encourage more terrorist activities against us in the future and has served to weaken our prestige in the eyes of the rest of the world. Any chance we had at leading a collective global effort, inclusive of moderate Arabs, to eradicate terrorism is gone for decades, if not generations.
Feel-good election or not-Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al fucked up monumentally. As for the Congress, rather than dying their fingers purple the color of choice should have been brown, to signify where their fingers were when they gave Dumbfuck carte blanche for his deadly follies.
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