Iraqi Election

[southpaw]

TAE.... if Russia goes back to communism then move over there and see how much you like it!

[The Ancient Enemy]

How about Russia as an example! And once again, did I say I favor communism? My statement about them heading back towards communism has nothing to do with me! Putin has already siezed more power (stole it) after that theatre bombing and become more centralized. People in his cabinet are ex-USSR dudes and have made it no secret that they are wanting to go back to the old system. Where is American pressure, southpaw? Nowhere to be found.

Yes I have heard of Pol Pot. You forget I'm a double major in history and political science. Here's an idea: how about, instead of just going into Iraq, we fly overhead and drop papers that say this: "We are thinking about how much better off you would be without your dictator, but we are not willing to shed OUR blood on you peoples f****** problems. Take responsibility for yourselves. If you want him out, kill him. We are ready to come into your country and WORK WITH YOU to build Iraq into a democracy that has an exceptional economy, which you have a vast potential to have. Overthrow your government and we'll come in here and completely help you." If they make no effort, looks like they didn't really want your help!

Why do American boys, who mostly go into the Army for money, have to go over there and fight all these wars? If they want something done, they'll do it, or at least get the ball rolling on their own. Iraq did not do that. You say "they'll get killed if they revolt". What the heck do you think would have happened to Washington and Jefferson, and their families, if we lost the revolution?

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOURSELF AND QUIT RELYING ON OUR BLOOD TO SOLVE YOUR PROBLEMS.

[Lemmy]

Baghdad -- Partial results from Sunday's election suggest that U.S.-backed Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's coalition is being roundly defeated by a list with the backing of Iraq's senior Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al- Sistani, diminishing Allawi's chances of retaining his post in the next government.

Sharif Ali bin Hussein, head of the Constitutional Monarchy Party, likened the vote outcome to a "Sistani tsunami" that would shake the nation.

"Americans are in for a shock," he said, adding that one day they would realize, "We've got 150,000 troops here protecting a country that's extremely friendly to Iran, and training their troops."


Safwat Rashid, a member of Iraq's Independent Election Commission, and international election officials warned observers not to read too much into the early numbers, which did not include tallies in the country's Sunni or Kurdish provinces.

Rashid said the Baghdad numbers came from "mixed" -- meaning Sunni and Shiite -- neighborhoods in the city where Allawi was expected to perform well. Hussein said Allawi had also performed poorly in Babil province, a relatively urbanized, mixed Shiite-Sunni area south of Baghdad.

He said the vote total and the total turnout numbers wouldn't be known for another 10 days.



For days, the press repeated, as gospel, assertions offered by an election official that 8 million Iraqis went to the polls on Sunday, an impressive 57% turnout rate. I questioned those figures as early as last Sunday, and offered the detailed analysis below on Wednesday. Finally, on Thursday night, John F. Burns and Dexter Filkins of The New York Times reported that Iraqi election officials have quietly "backtracked, saying that the 8 million estimate had been reached hastily on the basis of telephone reports from polling stations across the country and that the figure could change."
Then, in Friday's paper, Burns and Filkins noted that one election commision official was "evasive about the turnout, implying it might end up significantly lower than the initial estimate." They quoted this official, Safwat Radhid, exclaiming: "Only God Almighty knows the final turnout now." And they revealed that the announcement of a turnout number, expected to be released this weekend, has been put off for a week.

I'll be delighted if that figure, when it is officially announced, exceeds the dubious numbers already enshrined by much of the media. But don't be surprised if it falls a bit short. The point is: Nobody knows, and reporters and pundits should have never acted like they did know when they stated, flatly, that 8 million Iraqis voted and that this represents a turnout rate of about 57%. [...]

And one thing we now know for sure: the early media blather about a "strong" Sunni turnout has proven false. Adding a dose of reality, The Associated Press on Wednesday cited a Western diplomat who declared that turnout appeared to have been "quite low" in Iraq's vast Anbar province. Meanwhile, Carlos Valenzuela, the chief United Nations elections expert in Iraq, cautioned that forecasts for the Sunni areas were so low to begin with that even a higher-than-expected turnout would remain low.

In al-Anbar it was only 17,000 of 250,000 eligible voters, or 7% turnout. In Mosul, a city of 1.8 million people, only 54,000 votes were cast (3% of the population, so probably no more than 5% of the eligible voters). At one poll in Mosul only 3% of voters were women. At another, which opened at 7:00, at 10:00 they didn't have a single voter except the soldiers assigned to protect it. Why? Well, maybe folks didn't want to lose their heads--literally:

[southpaw]

I think all Russians are ex-USSR dudes.

The paper flyers, great idea TAE. We ought to try that one next time. What would we have put on them in 1945? That really would have scared Hitler and Tojo.

I guess then in your opinion that the slaves in the south should have risen up and started their own insurrection before the north came to their aid?

Freedom and Liberty always have and always will come at high price with lots of bloodshed.

[southpaw]

BTW... did you support our bombing of Serbia? What about Rwanda? We did nothing there and looked what happened.

[southpaw]

Lemmy did you make that up? Who wrote it and for whom?

Once again nobody in the left-wing media can give our troops and Bush credit for what they're doing in Iraq. Good news in Iraq is good news for Bush and the democrats can't stomach that.

[The Ancient Enemy]

It's not about scaring the dictators, southpaw. It's about telling the people that we'd help if they TOOK RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEMSELVES FOR ONCE IN THEIR LIVES. "Hey, maybe America will just show up and save us." That's never gonna sit well with me especially when we're everyone's big brother who has to show up at the 2nd grade playground and tell everyone to shut up.

And the Germans loved Hitler, pal. He turned Germany into a superpower. Hitler is a monster for the Holocaust. The Japanese didn't exactly hate Tojo either. The people of Germany didn't rise up against Hitler because they simply didn't care enough about the Jews or the rumors of what was happening. They turned a blind eye to the rumors. THEIR RESPONSIBILTY. And they also didn't rise up because Hitler took them from a depression way worse than ours and made them great. Not defending Hitler, just stating the facts.

Do I support the bombing of Serbia? Nope. They knew what was happening to the Albanians and no one did a thing about it. The Iraqis are showing you, as well as the Irish, how easy it is to blow people up. It's not rocket science. Everyone is vulnerable. You hate Milosevic for what he's doing? Kill him. When people fight over religious beliefs let them kill eachother. It's not your problem, southpaw. If they ask for advice or help, that's a different story.

And let's face it... we stayed out of Rwanda because Rwanda isn't white.

I'm so patriotic, southpaw, that I hate every other country in the world. I'm sick and tired of us getting dragged into other peoples messes and half the time they turn right back around and slap us in the face. When are you gonna learn?

[TheAnalyst]

So TAE, I take it you are speaking from experience. I imagine you have lived in a place where even to speak adversely about your leader got you and your family tortured or killed. You didn't know if your best friend could instantly become your enemy and you didn't know who you could trust.
I guess you have also led a coup against your oppressive government. You certainly realized you had to kill not only the dictator, but also all of his family, because his sons were even more brutal, and all of his leading generals.
You accomplished all of this planning while not being detected, even though there are eyes and ears in every facet of your life. You were able to amass all of the weapons you needed to carry out this mission even though only friends of the dictator were allowed to have weapons to begin with.
I agree with you TAE about being the worlds police force. I also wish all of the illegal immigrants coming here would stay in their own countries and fix their own problems, instead of taking the easy way out and coming here. Do we have any moral responsibility to help the suffering people of the world? I guess that's the real question.
I'm just pointing out that freeing oneself from an oppressive regime is not a simple undertaking. It's not as easy as killing one guy. The only way I think Saddam ever would have been removed is if all of the planning and forces needed to carry it out was done outside of Iraq.

[The Ancient Enemy]

Hence me already covering that and saying it: if they ask for help or some advice, it's a totally different story.

[LionPride]

So according to your logic, how many need to ask for help? 1 person? 1,000? You don't think that Iraqi woman in the balcony during the SOTU wanted help? You don't think the thousands cheering in the streets as the statues of Saddam fell wanted help?

Analyst said it well - how in the world were these people to plan an overthrow under an oppressive regime? It's called oppressive for a reason.