2005-10-18
Iraqi Vote - Worst Possible Outcome
"The absolute worst-case scenario is if the Sunnis come close to defeating the constitution, but fail. There will be accusations of vote-rigging and any political momentum the Sunnis felt was moving their way will be spent. The Shi’ites will have consolidated their power and those Sunnis on the fence might be moved into active opposition. The insurgency might even worsen, if such things are possible, or a close vote might be the trigger for open civil war."
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4 comments:
The worst case of course would involve voting fraud, as this would undermine the notion of democracy. I wonder how people like Nadir would view the voting if they perceived Iraq as they have perceived South Africa, with the non-Kurdish Sunnis taking the role of white South Africans. From my side, I have always (well, since my reformation from left-ism to libertarianism) said that a vital requisite for peace/democracy (I believe that there is no "peace" without self-rule and universal liberties, etc.) is forgiveness for previously privilidged, oppressive groups (except for some of the leaders). Otherwise, the bad guys will fight to the death.
Thus I want the non-Kurd Sunnis to feel that democracy will not lead to them getting reverse-persecution by the majority (and various minorities) that they (well, at least the Saddaam-istic subset) previously had persecuted. Yet, they cannot and should not get more power than their numbers reflect. As I understand the non-Kurd Sunni complaint, this group wants to keep the oil-rich lands from breaking away. As long as the people of those lands aren't breaking away in order to enslave a subset of their population (ie, to escape democracy), I'm all for it.
Most important, the people there must move away from identity politics, which leads always to bitter factionalization.
1) I support uncovering the US fed govt creating false news reports in order to orchestrate public opinion. Upholding the US Constitution in particular, and democracy in general, requires acceptance of the votes that follow debate, no matter how stupid you feel the vote is.
2) I oppose the US fed govt (or any state or local govt) using tax dollars to pay "opinion makers". Clinton and Bush II did this (Bush II most famously with Armstrong Williams, though reporters and Millions More Marchers chose to misrepresent this as "purchasing" an opinion, whereas Williams had advocated these opinions prior to getting paid).
3) Some of the alleged "false" news stories are supported by independant investigators who are just as credentialed as Joe Wilson and Col. Gardiner. Thus I am not convinced that each of these allegations survives scrutiny.
4) This article states as fact that the Bushies retailiated against Joe Wilson by exposing his wife. I am not the only person who is unconvinced by this interpretation. I do believe that the Bushies attempted to undermine their critic, which is a normal political tactic.
5) Surely the Bushies believed that the Iraqi invasion would turn up banned weapons, would be followed by an easy transition to democracy/ prosperity, and reduce anti-US islamic terror. It makes no sense for them to have thought otherwise. And they must surely have had more to support this view than a bunch of made-up stories. It makes no sense for them to have based the invasion on a bunch of lies that would certainly been exposed as false prior to the re-election campaign.
For you Nadir, any election in Iraq is the worst possible outcome.
The election in Iraq is illegal as was the invasion and is the occupation of Iraq. An election in Iraq would be a good thing if it were an exercise in true democracy rather than an illegal referendum on the validity of U.S. occupation.
At any rate, if the Sunnis were full participants in the Iraqi government like white South Africans are in their government, you wouldn't have these problems. Paul is right about that.
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