Elections in Iraq Blog

by redjade Tue Dec 28, 2004 12:31

Osama B L:
An audiotape message said to be made by the terrorist leader Osama bin Laden called for Muslims to boycott elections [in Iraq] next month and endorsed the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as Mr. bin Laden's deputy in Iraq.

The tape, broadcast Monday by the Arab news network Al Jazeera, condemned the American-backed Iraqi elections for a constitutional assembly, scheduled for Jan. 30, saying, "In the balance of Islam, this constitution is infidel and therefore everyone who participates in this election will be considered infidels."

- - -
W Bush:
"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."
- G.W. Bush, 3/13/02

"I am truly not that concerned about him."
- G.W. Bush, responding to a question about bin Laden's whereabouts, 3/13/02

by Hilaal Sun Jan 02, 2005 23:02 jimmymac61 at hotmail dot com

Americas ball of twine unravels
Osama bin Laden and other Islamic Resistance groups have promised to wreck the January 30th election . Earlier this week bin Laden confirmed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is the authorised leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.
The growing death toll of US invaders and their collaborators in the past six months indicates the growing proficiency and number of Resistance groups operating in Iraq. Resistance fighters are increasing their use of car bombs and booby trap explosive devices, as well as mortar or rocket fire, and they have the ability to choose the time and place of their well planned attacks, while the US military shiver in their fortified compounds, making only occasional forays to intimidate the Iraqi people .


Even in the so called Green Zone of Baghdad, where the US thieves and murders are holed up , they face deadly daily attacks. Marking the start of the new year, on Saturday a sniper shot dead a security guard working for a Kuwaiti company inside the Green Zone, displaying the vulnerability of their most secure lair.


A video tape released by Al Qaeda yesterday shows the execution of five Iraqi Guardsmen in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, on Dec. 26. The five men are seen lined up, their hands tied behind their backs, and shot. The collaborators fall to the ground but gunmen keep pumping them with bullets as passers by stopped to watch.


"These apostates are allied with Allawi's (CIA agent) apostate government and support the American enemy," said the statement accompanying the video. "They are attacking Muslim homes in Ramadi under the pretext of preventing terrorists from entering Iraq. Anyone who follows them will face the same fate."

The US hope the Iraqi police and National Guard will provide security for the election on January 30th, but mass desertions promise to greatly damage such plans. Resistance fighters have warned election workers against assisting in the "dirty farce" that is the proposed election of US sanctioned candidates. "The sword has become very near to your neck – leave any work that relates to the elections and stay safe. God willing, the hands of the holy warriors will reach those who take part in the elections, the polling stations and those running them".


Since Tuesday, more than 100 Iraqi security force and public servant collaborators have been executed, including the deputy governor of al-Anbar province. 20 police officers have been killed in various attacks . Two local government officials for Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, were assassinated along with an Iraqi police major outside his home in the capital and Iraqi police found two beheaded bodies in Baghdad along with a note that said they were truck drivers killed because they were working with the US military.

Three roadside bombs exploded in the capital early on Saturday, with one blast killing an Iraqi trucker hauling loads for foreign contractors . Five men in civilian clothes were found shot dead in Ramadi. A note on their bodies said they were security men killed by guerrilla fighters. Today a martyr exploded an explosive laden car into a bus full of Iraqi Guardsmen killing at least 26 and injuring many more.


A statement released by "The media platoon of the Islamic Jihad Army" last December stated:


"It is our duty, as well as our right, to fight back the occupying forces, for which their nations will be held morally and economically responsible, for what their elected governments have destroyed and stolen from our land.


We thank all those, including those of Britain and the US , who took to the streets in protest against this war and against Globalism.

Today, we call on you again. We do not require arms or fighters, for we have plenty.
We ask you to form a world wide front against war and sanctions. A front that is governed by the wise and knowing. A front that will bring reform and order. New institutions that would replace the now corrupt.


Stop using the US dollar, use the Euro or a basket of currencies. Reduce or halt your consumption of British and US products. Put an end to Zionism before it ends the world. Educate those in doubt of the true nature of this conflict and do not believe their media for their casualties are far higher than they admit.


The enemy is on the run. They are in fear of a resistance movement they can not see nor predict.


We will pin them here in Iraq to drain their resources, manpower, and their will to fight. We will make them spend as much as they steal, if not more.


We will disrupt, then halt the flow of our stolen oil, thus, rendering their plans useless.


And the earlier a movement is born, the earlier their fall will be.

And to the American soldiers we say, you can also choose to fight tyranny with us. Lay down your weapons, and seek refuge in our mosques, churches and homes. We will protect you. And we will get you out of Iraq , as we have done with a few others before you. Go back to your homes, families, and loved ones. This is not your war. Nor are you fighting for a true cause in Iraq .


To George W. Bush, we say, "You have asked us to 'Bring it on', and so we have . Like you never expected. Have you another challenge?"


http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

by eeekkkk Mon Jan 03, 2005 16:31

Juan Cole

by pc Mon Jan 03, 2005 16:44

The elections are set for the 29th. It's an interesting situation. The different sects and factions just can't seem to agree. Sunni Arabs are going to boycott elections. It's not about religion or fatwas or any of that so much as the principle of holding elections while you are under occupation. People don't really sense that this is the first stepping stone to democracy as western media is implying. Many people sense that this is just the final act of a really bad play. It's the tying of the ribbon on the "democracy parcel" we've been handed. It's being stuck with an occupation government that has been labeled 'legitimate' through elections. We're being bombarded with cute Iraqi commercials of happy Iraqi families preparing to vote. Signs and billboards remind us that the elections are getting closer... (put BBC link in as it was only one I could find which listed the practicalities of the elections such as they are, dates, candidate lists etc...

by eeekkk Mon Jan 03, 2005 22:04

.

by brian Tue Jan 04, 2005 11:34

graffiti sprayed all over their capitol building in a sort of tekno way no?
"agent smith we're saturated".
All Together Now.

by Michael Hennigan Tue Jan 04, 2005 12:35

It's rare for any election in the Arab world to be anything but a sham - so what's news?

Elections usually are a sham because minority groups fear the result of a free election.

by redjade Tue Jan 04, 2005 17:20

''Elections, American-occupation style: As-Sabah daily in Iraq conducted a public opinion survey which revealed that a mere 7% of the public know the programs and agendas of the different electoral lists. The names of many candidates on the various lists have not even been announced to the voters for "security reasons." ''

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2005/01/elections-american-occupation-style-as.html

by redjade Tue Jan 04, 2005 17:26

perhaps Oceania was never at war with Eurasia?

- -

US extends an olive branch to Taliban's 'moderates'
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/01/02/us_extends_an_olive_branch_to_talibans_moderates/

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Since the US military expelled the Taliban three years ago, it has battled the regime's diehard fighters in the barren mountains and dusty wastes of southern Afghanistan. Now the United States is extending an olive branch to moderate elements of its shadowy foe.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Kabul, offered amnesty recently to all but those Taliban whose crimes are ''beyond forgiveness." Senior US military officials have backed the proposal and promised not to arrest any Taliban foot soldier who surrenders under the amnesty.

''My message [to the Taliban] is: There's no reason to fight, to stay up in the mountains," Khalilzad said during a press conference. ''Lay down your arms, go to your elders, and tell them you want peace."

by redjade Tue Jan 04, 2005 17:39

Is Allawi Seeking To Delay Iraqi Election? Is Bush Saying No?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/4/33810/65649

by redjade Tue Jan 04, 2005 21:19

U.S. Turns Away Fom Arab Reforms
http://www.aina.org/news/20050103162831.htm
Inter Press Service News Agency

After a year of tough talk from U.S. policymakers about the inevitable 'democratization' of the Middle East, Washington appears to be backtracking, along with its Arab friends in the region.

- - -

Fact Sheet: November 6, 2003
President Bush Calls for a "forward Strategy of Freedom" to Promote Democracy in the Middle East
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/11/20031106-11.html

by Ciarán Ryan Wed Jan 05, 2005 14:33

Heroic statements from the rebels who butcher guards and aid workers alike.

by o brien Wed Jan 05, 2005 17:36

since you're so good at it.

by redjade Thu Jan 06, 2005 17:57

http://homepage.mac.com/njenson/movies/ds010405election.html
Quicktime requires

by redjade Fri Jan 07, 2005 14:17

Bush Family Values: The Bush twins have picked Kid Rock to play a teen concert for Daddy's inauguration. The performer of such musical gems as "Wax That Booty" and "Pimp of the Nation" ("There's only two types of men / pimps and johns / There's one type of bitch /And that's a ho"), perhaps it's a fitting choice. After all, wasn't it a Bush--Neil, in particular--who was serviced by prostitutes while traveling in Hong Kong and Thailand (the same country his uncle is photo-opping in today)? And, well, you could say Neil's brother, George, is pimping us all right now...

http://eyeteeth.blogspot.com/2005/01/bush-family-values-bush-twins-have.html

Quote:

'Pimp Of The Nation'
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/kidrock/pimpofthenation.html

I've been a pimp so long I knew gahndi when he had an afro

Pimp, hold my dick like a holster
All the girls want a Kid Rock poster
And be able to both stay looked at
The number one pimp with the number one rap
What's up with that
Well I'm a cool cat
With the rap
That's harder than a pimp slap
And because I do so much pimpin
One day I'll probably walk with a limp
And drive a big Lincoln
Wearin an unbuttoned shirt
And be a fifty-five year old pervert

by redjade Fri Jan 07, 2005 15:15

AMY GOODMAN: What do you see happening with this election? On U.S. television, we repeatedly hear the story that the suicide bombings will increase, U.S. officials saying this as well that the violence will increase, because militants want to stop democracy in the elections.

ROBERT FISK: Sure. I mean, you have got to realize that this is now a constant sort of logo of American and British news-speak in Iraq. They announce that something wonderful is going to happen, an interim governments a new constitution, elections. And then they say that violence is going to increase, that things are going to get worse the nearer we get to it.

In other words the better things to come, the worse things are. The worse things are, the better things are going to become. This is part of the self-delusional policy with which we tried to hide our total failure in Iraq, our total failure even to control the country and allow the citizens of that country to live in safety and security. We don't even give the casualty figures. We don't know, we don't care about them.

Even if the elections take place as I say, which I doubt, still doubt, they will be so hopelessly flawed by the absence of the Sunni population, so accompanied by terror on the part of the U.S. administration, that the Shiites might wipe the floor and set up an Islamic republic, even worse than democracy would be an Islamic republic in Iraq. I don't think they will solve anything.

Ultimately, I think what we are going to see, as we have seen in all Middle East wars of occupation, is the opening of some kind of contact between the Americans and the insurgents.

This is what the French did after years of saying they would never talk to terrorists, they talked to the FLN. After years of saying they would never talk to terrorists, the British talked to the IRA. After years of saying they would never talk to terrorists, the British talked to the militants fighting them in Aden and to EOKA in Cyprus, and indeed, to both militant sides in Palestine that they tried to escape from what Churchill called a hell disaster in 1948.

The Americans will soon, if they have not already, establish contact with the insurgents, and that will mean the beginning of end. It means that the project is over. That they have accepted, as I think, you know, they have already in terms of soldiers on the ground. If you are going to talk to the colonels, and they may -- the majors and the generals in Iraq, they know that the game is up.

by pc Fri Jan 07, 2005 16:10

does the us army leave in 20 years instead of 50?

by redjade Fri Jan 07, 2005 16:29

heh! yeah, 19 years and that would be hopeful.

thing to remember about the Bush cronies is that they are the guys or were the underlings of the guys that made the Iran-Contra deals in the Reagan/Daddy Bush years.

We know that the Shannon Express type planes 'renditioned' people to Syria (honorary Axis of Evil® member) and we should remember that the Bushies triied to buy off the Taliban before 9/11.

This tells a little about the over-world (as opposed to underworld) and how things really work (minus the mythology on available on SkyNews).

Perhaps, Daddy Bush will ask Papa Bin Laden at the next Carlyle Group shareholders meeting to put the feuds between the two mafia princes to an end?

Then we can all get back to that ol' New World Order thang.

Ive been predicting Cheney's final heart attack for far too long, but time is ticking. What impact would no-Cheney in the White House be?

Lost without a compass? Then time to sit down and negotiate with terrorists, like Daddy did?

all speculation of course

by redjade Mon Jan 10, 2005 14:44

U.S. Rep. Howard Coble, dean of the state's congressional delegation and an avowedly strong supporter of President Bush, says it's time for the United States to consider withdrawing from war-ravaged Iraq.

Coble, a Republican from Greensboro, is one of the first members of Congress -- Republican or Democrat -- to say publicly that the United States should consider a pullout.

The 10-term congressman, head of the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, said he is "fed up with picking up the newspaper and reading that we've lost another five or 10 of our young men and women in Iraq."

Coble said he has noticed a shift among his constituents in the 6th Congressional District regarding their feelings about the war. Letters, phone calls and messages that had been overwhelmingly supportive of the war are now about even, his office said.

http://www.news-record.com/news/local/cobleiraq_010905.htm

discussion at
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/10/31339/5284

by redjade Mon Jan 10, 2005 17:34

Hot Topic: How U.S. Might Disengage in Iraq
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/10/politics/10policy.html?ex=1263013200&en=b4b69292d66b0513&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

Three weeks before the election in Iraq, conversation has started bubbling up in Congress, in the Pentagon and some days even in the White House about when and how American forces might begin to disengage in Iraq.

So far it is mostly talk, not planning. The only thing resembling a formal map to the exit door is a series of Pentagon contingency plans for events after the Jan. 30 elections.

[....]

Already, the president found himself in a rare public argument last week with one of his father's closest friends and advisers, Brent Scowcroft, the former national security adviser. The election "won't be a promising transformation, and it has great potential for deepening the conflict," Mr. Scowcroft declared Thursday, adding, "We may be seeing incipient civil war at this time."

Mr. Scowcroft said the situation in Iraq raised the fundamental question of "whether we get out now." He urged Mr. Bush to tell the Europeans on a trip to Europe next month: "I can't keep the American people doing this alone. And what do you think would happen if we pulled American troops out right now?"

[....]

Few officials will talk publicly about that possibility. But in a speech on Oct. 8, Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, who had just completed a tour as commander of all marines in Iraq, said, "I believe there will be elections in Iraq in January, and I suspect very shortly afterward you will start to see a reduction in U.S. forces - not because U.S. planners will seek it, rather because the Iraqis will demand it."

by redjade Tue Jan 11, 2005 12:59

ya know youre losing the war when even the bullsh*tters find it hard to bullsh*t anymore

- - -
screenshot of
http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/

link found at
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/11/13755/2258

www.whitehouse.gov - last good news was in Oct 21st 2004

by redjade Tue Jan 11, 2005 13:13

In another significant blow to Iraq's upcoming elections, the entire 13-member electoral commission in the volatile province of Anbar, west of the capital, resigned after being threatened by insurgents, a regional newspaper reported Sunday.

Saad Abdul-Aziz Rawi, the head of the commission, told the Anbar newspaper that it was "impossible to hold elections" in the province, which is dominated by Sunni Muslims and where insurgent attacks already have prevented voter registration.

[....]

An Iraqi at the commission's office in Anbar said the members had resigned and had gone into hiding.

by redjade Tue Jan 11, 2005 13:34

The most serious calls for postponement come from Sunni political forces that oppose not democracy per se, but rather the structure of the transitional political process. Specifically, they object to the electoral system of proportional representation for the new assembly that will choose a transitional government and write a constitution; seats will be allocated not based on geography but on the national vote results. With violence and instability much more pervasive in the Sunni provinces, they worry that polling will be disrupted, hurting Sunni slates' chance of winning enough votes to qualify for seats.

If turnout is much heavier in the Shiite south and Kurdish north than in Sunni provinces like Al Anbar (which includes Falluja) and Salaheddin (whose capital is Saddam Hussein's hometown, Tikrit), the Sunnis, who account for about 15 percent to 20 percent of the population, may win only a tiny percentage of the seats. Then, they fear, their bid for a fair share of power and resources in the new system would be crushed. (That the Kurds and Shiites have been subjected to such treatment by the central government for decades doesn't justify their perpetuating it.)

Sunni political and social leaders are not calling for an open-ended cancellation of the election. They are requesting a one-time postponement of several months, in order to establish the "necessary conditions" for a fair and inclusive vote. They want a more transparent electoral commission. They want citizens to be better informed about the electoral process.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/09/opinion/09diamond.html?ex=1263013200&en=0bdbf8f6ca0b9151&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

by redjade Tue Jan 11, 2005 14:10

US soldiers mistakenly opened fire on Iraqi police and civilians after an ambush south of Baghdad yesterday, killing five people.

The incident came less than 24 hours after a mis-aimed US bomb was dropped on a home in the north of the country, killing another five Iraqis.

[....]

According to Iraqi police, the soldiers shot dead two police and two civilians after their convoy was hit by a roadside bomb in the town of Yusufiya, while a fifth Iraqi died of a heart attack at the scene.

by potter potter - = just little jobs and nixers nothing solid or stable you know. same old same old. mustn't grumble. Tue Jan 11, 2005 22:02

numquam praesedium neque reguim verum amici sunt.

= never can a power stand without true friends.

Whilst over 1,400 articles have appeared on the web relating to the mudslide in California within 24 hours, at the little hamlet called "la conchita" which means something in english, that would get edited straight away, and shock the older more innocent twnikie types amongst you.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6812481/

only one article appeared in the Conservative backwood Tory press today (the Daily Telegraph) on the "no way to run a war on terror" theme. Which I think you'll agree ought take its place in the Iraqi election blog. An interesting page 13, "arts section" which greeted the generally well heeled readers of Tory Engurland after passing an eye over the Abu Ghraib photo on page 12 "world news", it is an interview with Former CIA officer Lindsay Moran who has written a damning account of her time with the agency, which she says, is chauvinistic (that can mean sexist in a Tory way or Jingoist in a Tory way) blinkered (like a horse drawing a cart) and has learnt no lessons from September 11. (which one?)
Tom Leonard talked to the defector / traitor / ingrate / woman :-
here is article (edited very long address - an editor)
(you've to log in) [eurgh] = cookies. (surprised they don't call them biscuits or wafers)

by money man Tue Jan 11, 2005 22:09

please contact your local PSNI office and you'll get paid the big reward in used northern bank notes.
If you live in the ROI you could call into your local parish priest's office and get paid the big reward in used 20punt O Connell da liberatur notes.
Meanwhile, help the survivors of the natural disaster of La Conchita, why has the government still not done anything?
What has UNICEF said about the kids of La Conchita?

by redjade Wed Jan 12, 2005 16:47

Congress passes `doomsday' plan

http://news.bostonherald.com/politics/view.bg?articleid=62564&format=text

With no fanfare, the U.S. House has passed a controversial doomsday provision that would allow a handful of lawmakers to run Congress if a terrorist attack or major disaster killed or incapacitated large numbers of congressmen.

by righteous pragmatist Wed Jan 12, 2005 17:44

Can you not see that a free Iraq will emerge with its first democratic elections?
Would you prefer the US and Coalition forces had never intervened and Saddam Hussein was still the ruler of Iraq slaughtering Iraqis by the thousands? Would you prefer that Iraq were still under crippling UN sanctions and dept?
Once Iraq has a democratic government a working police and army then US and Coalition Forces can eventually leave. There will be a new democratic ally in the Middle East along with Israel with which to fight Islamic terror and inspire the people of the Middle East oppressed by dictators and tyrants to seek democracy for themselves.

by redjade Wed Jan 12, 2005 19:18

Allawi Group Slips Cash to Reporters
Financial Times/UK
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0111-13.htm

The electoral group headed by Iyad Allawi, the interim Iraqi prime minister, on Monday handed out cash to journalists to ensure coverage of its press conferences in a throwback to Ba'athist-era patronage ahead of parliamentary elections on January 30.

After a meeting held by Mr Allawi's campaign alliance in west Baghdad, reporters, most of whom were from the Arabic-language press, were invited upstairs where each was offered a "gift" of a $100 bill contained in an envelope.

Many of the journalists accepted the cash - about equivalent to half the starting monthly salary for a reporter at an Iraqi newspaper - and one jokingly recalled how Saddam Hussein's regime had also lavished perks on favoured reporters.

by righteous pragmatist Wed Jan 12, 2005 21:51

You know how many bucks Bush spent on his campaign, his grand alliance with Fox News and the Swift Boat Vets.
Thats what all politicians do in every country in the world.
John Kerry had allies such as Dan Rather on CBS who used faked documents as "proof" that Bush dodged his service in the Texas Air National Guard. His wife and George Soros funded MoveOn.Org.
How about Michael Moore who sat beside Jimmy Carter while they listened to Kerry at the Democrat Nation Convention or what about that Kerry campaign ad that earned hundreds of millions in the cinema- "Farhenheit 9/11"?
You don't think Bertie is cosy with Sam Smith of the Irish Independent and Today FM?
Or that Pat Rabitte is friendly with many Irish Times journalists?
How about the free ride RTE gave to Gerry Adams on The Late Late Show?
What about Duncan Stuart and his Eco Eye show which parrots Green Party claptrap?

by eeekkkk Wed Jan 12, 2005 22:38

This is a great article and reminds me very much of the classic geurilla war strategies the PIRA used to fight the British Army in the North. This is just a short extract

"In attacking first Najaf, then Tal Afar and Samarra, and finally tackling the center of the Sunni resistance in Fallujah, the US was seeking to reverse this process. But these attacks were not designed to restore order; they were, instead, intended to prevent the consolidation of a very orderly anti-American status quo in a constantly expanding set of "liberated" areas.

Ironically, the American attacks in the fall of 2004 underscore the larger contradictions in American policy in Iraq: that the chaos American leaders keep saying they are preventing will, in fact, occur only if US military forces succeed in destroying these nascent city-states.

To see this we need only begin by recalling the description above of the Sadrist regime in Baghdad. While there is ample room for concern that the consolidation of Mehdi power might result in the forcible imposition of fundamentalist orthodoxy, there appears to be little chance that law and order would disintegrate. Without underestimating the thuggish tendencies among the Mehdi and granting that there is currently far too much street crime in Sadr City, the Sadrists are the only effective governing force in the Baghdad Shi'ite community. The removal of US troops would allow Sadrist civilian authority to operate openly and thus consolidate their daily supervision of the militia. This would enhance their ability to control the excesses of the militia and systematically reduce street crime, and would almost certainly result in an orderly (perhaps too orderly) daily existence in the areas they control."

by redjade Thu Jan 13, 2005 17:23

"Out Now" was considered once a dangerous slogan or a utopian hope,depending on your point of view

So what is in the news today? A prediction by none other than Colin Powell that Johnny will be marching home this year. This is probably a trial balloon but it is another sign of how desperate the situation in Iraq is, and why some of the "wise men" in high places know its time for an exit strategy. And fast.

That's why this nutty election is being rushed--to create a pretext for what in an earler war was called "Vietnamization." The Washington Post reports today: "US lowers expectations On Iraq Vote: Process Emphasized, Not Turnout or Results." So there you have it--an "election" being staged just for show. (And a bloody show at that with more casualties today. Five more US soldiers dead in Mosul.)

by redjade Thu Jan 13, 2005 17:30

The U.S. secretary of state is raising prospects that some of the nation's troops may be able to leave Iraq this year.

[....]

"With the assumption of that greater burden, the burden on our troops should go down, and we should start to see our numbers going in the other direction," Powell said. "But I cannot give you a timeline as to when they'll all be home."

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20050113-074955-7950r.htm

by eeekkk Thu Jan 13, 2005 19:08

And he does not travel with bodyguards or stay in the green zone it seems.

"Their rifles are porcupine quills, pointing at every motorist, every Iraqi on the pavement, the Iraqi army pointing their weapons at their own people. And they are all wearing masks - black hoods or ski-masks or keffiyahs that leave only slits for frightened eyes. Just before it collapsed finally into the hands of the insurgents last summer, I saw exactly the same scene in the streets of Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad. Now I am watching them in the capital. "

by redjade Thu Jan 13, 2005 22:26

Two aides to Iraq's top Shi'ite leader Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani have been killed in separate attacks apparently aimed at inflaming sectarian conflict among Iraqis already divided on whether Jan. 30 polls should go ahead.

A Sistani representative said on Thursday gunmen killed cleric Mahmoud al-Madaen along with his son and four bodyguards. Madaen, Sistani's representative in the ancient town of Salman Pak south of Baghdad, was killed on Wednesday.

Another aide, Halim al-Mohaqeq, a cleric working in Sistani's office in Najaf, was also found dead on Wednesday.

"Sheikh Halim was found drowned in his own blood. Investigations are under way," leading Sistani representative Hamed al-Khafaf said.

[....]

Sunni leaders say that if many Sunnis regard the elections as unfair, this will spark more bloodshed and even civil war.

The reclusive Sistani, Iraq's most widely revered religious leader, commands enormous influence in the country. Sistani has urged Shi'ites to refrain from revenge attacks.

"Do you think that Shi'ite forces cannot storm into southern Baghdad and secure these areas? But we don't want to hand our enemies the civil war they want," a Shi'ite official said.

by eeekkk Thu Jan 13, 2005 22:27

Via Juancole.com

' According to the Al Furat newspaper, 53 political parties and organizations as well as 30 individuals have asked their names to be dropped from the election lists in a bid to show their rejection of elections under US occupation. '

by heretic watcher Thu Jan 13, 2005 22:48

"But never mind. It is now safe to conclude, even if “heretical,” that al-Qaeda is, like, not what we thought it was, and it is perfectly acceptable for the “liberal” Los Angeles Times to say so, although the far-right will scream bloody flipping murder once again and probably call for a subscription boycott of the newspaper. Far right nut birds like having Osama and al-Qaeda around, it lends legitimacy to their feverish and crack-brained rantings, the stuff of daily talk shows up and down the dial on the “public” airwaves.

Besides, who reads the Los Angeles Times? It stacks up to a hill of beans when compared to the mountain of Fox News, where most Americans get their news in easily digestible one minute chunks, complete with ditzy blondes and “experts” who are former military hard-liners also well vested in myths designed to scare the be-jesus out of gullible saps in the Deliverance States and elsewhere.

Well, maybe I’m a bit harsh. After all, Scheer mentions a “brilliant new BBC film produced by one of Britain’s leading documentary filmmakers [that] systematically challenges [the al-Qaeda Myth] and many other accepted articles of faith in the so-called war on terror.” Unfortunately, this film will never run on American television—and even if it does, it no longer matters because al-Qaeda has served its purpose and journalists, who fancy themselves “heretical,” can safely mention the myth, although leaving out conspicuous details.
"

by redjade Thu Jan 13, 2005 23:13

Secret ballots are the cornerstone of any democratic process. But little more than two weeks before Iraq's first free elections on Jan. 30, the country is finding that secrecy is being taken to new heights.

The identities of many of the candidates haven't been publicly disclosed and are likely to remain secret until after election day, an illustration of the difficulty in mounting an election amid war.

[....]

Candidates' identities are not the only remaining secret in the election. To help prevent them from being attacked, the location of polling places will not be released until about a week before the election. Party platforms also seem to be kept secret. Campaigning has also been limited, with almost no mass campaign events or rallies.

by redjade Fri Jan 14, 2005 15:24

Baker advises administration to consider a phased withdrawal of troops
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/a/2005/01/13/national1623EST0636.DTL

Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, an architect of the U.S. war with Iraq in 1991, is advising the Bush administration to consider a phased withdrawal of some of the 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

Otherwise, Baker says, the United States risks being suspected of having an "imperial design" in the region.

[....]

"Even under the best of circumstances, the new Iraqi government will remain extremely vulnerable to internal divisions and external meddling," he said.

Still, former President George H.W. Bush's secretary of state said, "any appearance of a permanent occupation will both undermine domestic support here in the United States and play directly into the hands of those in the Middle East who -- however wrongly -- suspect us of imperial design."

by redjade Sat Jan 15, 2005 15:06

Sixteen House Democrats led by Rep. Lynn Woolsey of Petaluma called on President Bush on Wednesday to begin the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, just as some administration supporters are starting to question the wisdom of staying the course in the war.

So far, the Bush administration remains publicly unshakable in its position that the elections on Jan. 30 should proceed despite fears about safety for voters in parts of Iraq. The president and other administration officials have said U.S. forces will start withdrawing only once U.S.-trained Iraqi forces can take responsibility for more of the patrolling and the fighting.

by redjade Sat Jan 15, 2005 15:23

The U.S. spent $102 billion through Sept. 30 on the invasion and occupation of Iraq, with costs averaging $4.8 billion a month, the Pentagon comptroller's office said today.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=71000001&refer=top_world_news&sid=asC2oZAGbhZE

----

$350,000,000 pledged aid from USA to Tsunami Relief

$4,800,000,000/mo spent on Iraq War divided by 30 days

= $160,000,000/day spent on Iraq War

$350,000,000 Tsunami Aid divided by $160,000,000/day spent on Iraq War

= 2.2 (rounding up)

[if i have done the maths right...]

The US has pledged for Tsnami Aid what the US spends every two days and 5 hours in Iraq.

by redjade Sat Jan 15, 2005 15:31

According to Chas Freeman, former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia and head of the independent Middle East Policy Council, Mr Bush recently asked Mr Powell for his view on the progress of the war. "We're losing," Mr Powell was quoted as saying. Mr Freeman said Mr Bush then asked the secretary of state to leave.

A senior White House official said he had no knowledge of such an exchange and added: "The president acknowledges there are significant challenges. "He does not characterise them as insurmountable. Others do."

by redjade Sat Jan 15, 2005 16:00

Another problem is the selling of ballots. We're getting our ballots through the people who give out the food rations in the varying areas. The whole family is registered with this person(s) and the ages of the varying family members are known. Many, many, many people are not going to vote. Some of those people are selling their voting cards for up to $400. The word on the street is that these ballots are being bought by people coming in from Iran. They will purchase the ballots, make false IDs (which is ridiculously easy these days) and vote for SCIRI or Daawa candidates. Sunnis are receiving their ballots although they don't intend to vote, just so that they won't be sold.

Yet another issue is the fact that on all the voting cards, the gender of the voter, regardless of sex, is labeled "male". Now, call me insane, but I found this slightly disturbing. Why was that done? Was it some sort of a mistake? Why is the sex on the card anyway? What difference does it make? There are some theories about this. Some are saying that many of the more religiously inclined families won't want their womenfolk voting so it might be permissible for the head of the family to take the women's ID and her ballot and do the voting for her. Another theory is that this 'mistake' will make things easier for people making fake IDs to vote in place of females.

by redjade Sun Jan 16, 2005 13:22

President Bush said the public's decision to reelect him was a ratification of his approach toward Iraq and that there was no reason to hold any administration officials accountable for mistakes or misjudgments in prewar planning or managing the violent aftermath.

"We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections," Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post. "The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me."

by redjade Sun Jan 16, 2005 13:27

The threat of death hung so heavily over the election rally, held this week on the fifth floor of the General Factory for Vegetable Oil, that the speakers refused to say whether they were candidates at all.

"Too dangerous," said Hussein Ali, who solicited votes for the United Iraqi Alliance, a party fielding dozens of candidates for the elections here. "It's a secret."

And then Mr. Ali and his colleagues left, escorted by men with guns.

[....]

Of the 7,471 people who have filed to run, only a handful outside the relatively safe Kurdish areas have publicly identified themselves. The locations for the 5,776 polling places have not been announced, lest they become targets for attacks.

The predicament for candidates was spelled out on a flier passed around town by the United Iraqi Alliance. The flier listed the names of 37 candidates for the national assembly. The 188 others, the flier said, could not be published.

"Our apologies for not mentioning the names of all the candidates," the flier said. "But the security situation is bad, and we have to keep them alive."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/international/middleeast/16election.html?ex=1263531600&en=7fb02872bcc3ea63&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

by redjade Sun Jan 16, 2005 15:16

It feels like just about everyone who can is going to leave the country before the elections. They say the borders between Syria and Jordan might be closed a week before elections so people are rushing to get packed and get out. Many families are simply waiting for their school-age children to finish mid-year finals or college exams so they can leave.

[....]

A question poses it self at this point- why don't they let the scientists go if the weapons don't exist? Why do they have Iraqi scientists like Huda Ammash, Rihab Taha and Amir Al Saadi still in prison? Perhaps they are waiting for those scientists to conveniently die in prison? That way- they won't be able to talk about the various torture techniques and interrogation tactics...

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2005_01_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#110581954852154476

-- -- --

Also:
Baghdad Burning Blog recommends a blog:

Remember Imad Khadduri? He's the Iraqi nuclear scientist who wrote the book "Iraq's Nuclear Mirage" [ http://www.iraqsnuclearmirage.com/index_en.php ] which is a must-read. He's finally blogging. Check out his site, "Free Iraq"- 'Free Iraq' [ http://abutamam.blogspot.com ] being more of a command and not a description of the current state of the country...

He links a lot of interesting articles and always has commentary in English (plus some of the stuff he writes in Arabic).

by redjade Sun Jan 16, 2005 15:29

As the Bush administration drops hints about withdrawing troops from Iraq as early as this year, the Pentagon is building a permanent military communications system that suggests American soldiers will be in Iraq for the foreseeable future.

The new network, known as Central Iraq Microwave System, will eventually consist of up to 12 communications towers throughout Iraq and fiber-optic cables connecting Camp Victory, located outside of Baghdad, to other coalition bases in the country, according to three sources familiar with the project. The land-based system will replace the tactical communications network the Army and Marines have been using in Iraq.

by redjade Sun Jan 16, 2005 15:38

Registration will begin in four days, and anyone who is or once was an Iraqi citizen, even if he was deprived of the citizenship, is eligible to vote, Sarah Tosh, spokesperson for Iraq's out-of-country-voting (OCV) central headquarters, said Wednesday.

[....]

Some 130,000 Jews emigrated from Iraq to Israel after it's establishment, decimating one of the oldest Jewish communities in the Arab world.

by eeekkkkk Sun Jan 16, 2005 21:21

scary

by redjade Tue Jan 18, 2005 14:10

I'm free, I'm happy, I'm in my break!! I had the last exam today, and now, I'm in my break.. It's nice to have the messenger opened and cousins getting in and out and chatting with each other :) It's the break, let's waste time and have fun!

[....]

During the exams, a girl's aunt got killed by the Americans and I told you about it.. And shortly after that, another girl's uncle got killed by the Americans. So, I guess I'm so thankful God for keeping my family healthy and alive!! Thank you..

http://astarfrommosul.blogspot.com/2005/01/finally-free-to-write-and-explain.html


[....]

And now, to the critical object, the last blog from Mosul: A citizen from Mosull.. Which most of you suspected that it was written by my dad, is actually written by dad!

A Citizen Of Mosul
http://moslawi.blogspot.com/

by redjade Wed Jan 19, 2005 16:05

In Baghdad, a prominent female candidate escaped an ambush by gunmen wearing police uniforms.

U.S. and Iraqi officials are scrambling to recruit new police and poll workers in Mosul after thousands quit in recent days.

by redjade Wed Jan 19, 2005 16:07

Shiite politician Salama Khafaji, who survived an ambush Sunday in central Baghdad by gunmen wearing police uniforms, said she canceled campaigning in the south after her staff discovered terrorist checkpoints on major routes.

``What we fear now most is terrorists wearing police uniforms,'' Khafaji told The Associated Press on Monday. ``The uniforms and body armor used by the police are available on the market for anyone to buy.''

by redjade Thu Jan 20, 2005 22:43

links and info...
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/%7Estephan/USfatalities.html

by redjade Thu Jan 20, 2005 23:07

→ Britain is urging America to announce a timetable for withdrawing coalition troops from Iraq over the next 18 months or more.

With a new Iraqi government due to take power after next week's elections, The Telegraph has learned that British officials believe the time is ripe for the coalition to announce an "indicative timetable" for its departure.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/20/wirq20.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/01/20/ixnewstop.html

-- -- --

→ Will Bush Quit Iraq?
by Alexander Cockburn

Politically, there will never be a more opportune time to start a withdrawal. Bush was reelected with a solid majority. Unlike Kerry, he does not have to establish his warmongering credentials. Republicans rule both chambers of Congress and the midterm elections are nearly two years in the future.

The political establishment is split. James Baker certainly speaks for the oil industry, and most of corporate America thinks America has problems far more pressing than Iraq. The libertarian, and old conservative wing of the Republican Party has never liked this war.

But the Israel lobby, which pitched the war to Bush and got America into it, is still deeply committed and retains considerable power both in the government, the Congress and the para-government of Institutes, Centers and Think-tanks that throttle Washington like kudzu.

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn01192005.html

by redjade Sun Jan 23, 2005 12:46

Major U.S.-run detention facilities in Iraq are nearing capacity, with the number of suspected insurgents in custody on Thursday at the highest level since March, according to detention officials.

The U.S. military has about 7,900 so-called security detainees -- people suspected of participating in the insurgency or otherwise threatening Iraq's security -- at its three primary holding facilities in Iraq, officials said. In addition, releases have been suspended until after Jan. 30, when Iraqis are to elect a National Assembly.

[....]

"It's been steadily growing since September," said Maj. Gen. William H. Brandenburg, commander of U.S. detention operations in Iraq. He said that an average of 50 people were being arrested every day and that U.S. and Iraqi security forces had recently been capturing as many as 70 in a day.

by redjade Sun Jan 23, 2005 16:25

January 19, 2005
The plan was a hopeful one: Some of those siding with the insurgency in this restive city would be offered a chance to drop their weapons and vow not to sabotage the elections.

U.S. military commanders invited suspected insurgents and religious and tribal leaders sympathetic to the resistance to gather Tuesday for a conference with Iraqi government and military officials. The invitees would be asked to sign a pledge not to support or participate in violent acts against Iraqi or U.S. forces through the scheduled Jan. 30 elections.

But not one Iraqi signed the pledge, and many used the forum to accuse U.S. troops and Iraqi officials of creating a dangerous atmosphere in a region where the insurgency seems to be gaining momentum.

Others simply charged that they were falsely accused of being insurgents because they did not agree with the occupation.

by mise Sun Jan 23, 2005 16:32

Dont know if ye have seen this but it's worth a critical look.

Talk about iconic imagery - I hope this haunts bush for the rest of his life, less of course.......

by eeekkk Sun Jan 23, 2005 22:51

The US military is planning to deploy robots armed with machine-guns to wage war against insurgents in Iraq.

Eighteen of the 1m-high robots, equipped with cameras and operated by remote control, are going to Iraq this spring, the Associated Press reports.

The machine is based on a robot already used by the military to disable bombs.

Officials say the robot warrior is fast, accurate and will track and attack the enemy with relatively little risk to the lives of US soldiers.

by automatic Sun Jan 23, 2005 23:05

And no doubt they will be passing through Shannon.
Courtesy of Bertram Ahern.
Bertram does not believe that the passage of these weapons is wrong.
Despite all evidence to the contrary.
But he does believe the non-evidence of Hugh Orde.
Go figure.

by Bender Mon Jan 24, 2005 12:57

Q: Why would Robots need any rights?

A: It is the ASPCR's position that any sentient being (artificially created or not) has certain unalienable rights endowed by its CREATION (not by its Creator), and that those rights include the right to Existence, Independence, and the Pursuit of Greater Cognition.

It is also the ASPCR's opinion that the current laws of property and capital will surely be applied in opposition to the exercising of these rights. Robots, and all Created Intelligences, will most likely go through an initial period of being considered "property" before they are recognized as fully sentient beings, with all attendant rights.

from:
American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Robots
ASPCR
http://www.aspcr.com/

by redjade Mon Jan 24, 2005 16:47

The day after the soldiers came, Imaad ordered his mother to go through her refrigerator and pantry and throw out all the cheese that had been made outside Iraq. He went around and collected any images of Westerners in the house, threw them in a pile and burned them until they were floating bits of ash. He struck his mother repeatedly and forbade her to watch foreign news or movie channels on their new television.

The Americans were "the devil," Imaad ranted.

By all accounts, Imaad, 32, was a typical, mild-mannered college graduate who spoke English well and had quietly supported the U.S. presence in Iraq -- until Jan. 5, the night the soldiers came.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22249-2005Jan19?language=printer

by R. Isible Mon Jan 24, 2005 16:56

The one you posted looks like the kid is covered in bullet holes, but the one I post a link to below, shows that they're embroidered flowers on her dress. Also there's something very weird about the body shapes in them. Especially the apparent height of the child in the one you post and then her apparent height in the one in the link below. Anyone know anything about this photographer?

by redjade Mon Jan 24, 2005 17:35

The photog's name is Chris Hondros, he's with Getty Images

check out his images at Getty: http://tinyurl.com/4tn94

more explanation of these photo series here:
→ http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-iraq-photostory0119,0,5445645.photogallery?coll=ny-world-big-pix


Hondros also won 1st and 2nd 2004 Best Magazine News Photo Award from the National Press Photographers Association

→ http://www.nppa.org/competitions/best_of_still_photojournalism/2004/winners/still/MAN/2nd-Hondros.html

as well as the 3rd place 2004 Magazine News Picture Story
→ http://www.nppa.org/competitions/best_of_still_photojournalism/2004/winners/still/index.cfm?category=MNS&place=3rd

A full account by Hondros is here
→ http://www.pdnonline.com/photodistrictnews/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000768970

'' Meanwhile, the children continued to wail and scream, huddled against a wall, sandwiched between soldiers either binding their wounds or trying to comfort them. The Army's translator later told me that this was a Turkoman family and that the teenaged girl kept shouting, "Why did they shoot us? We have no weapons! We were just going home!" ''

Chris Hondros' own website:
http://www.chrishondrosphotography.com/

by redjade Tue Jan 25, 2005 00:19

Earlier this month, according to Iraqi officials, $300 million in American bills was taken out of Iraq's Central Bank, put into boxes and quietly put on a charter jet bound for Lebanon.

The money was to be used to buy tanks and other weapons from international arms dealers, the officials say, as part of an accelerated effort to assemble an armored division for the fledgling Iraqi Army. But exactly where the money went, and to whom, and for precisely what, remains a mystery, at least to Iraqis who say they have been trying to find out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/22/international/middleeast/22baghdad.html?ex=1264050000&en=604ead26d81709ea&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

by redjade Tue Jan 25, 2005 14:24

Al-Hayat also says that Aqil Abdul Karim Saffar, a member of the leadership of the Iraqi National Accord (Allawi's party) said Sunday that if other parties win, it will provoke a civil war. He seemed to be saying that the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shiite coalition, would be unacceptable to other Iraqis were it to win and form the government.

Well, I guess they already have American-style democracy. This reminds me of Cheney saying that the US would be struck by terrorists if John Kerry were elected.

http://www.juancole.com/2005/01/bombs-zarqawi-and-sistanis.html

by redjade Tue Jan 25, 2005 14:26

I’m sure people outside of the country are shaking their heads at the words ‘collective punishment’. “No, Riverbend,” they are saying, “That’s impossible.” But anything is possible these days. People in many areas are being told that if they don’t vote- Sunnis and Shia alike- the food and supply rations we are supposed to get monthly will be cut off. We’ve been getting these rations since the beginning of the nineties and for many families, it’s their main source of sustenance. What sort of democracy is it when you FORCE people to go vote for someone or another they don’t want?

by mise Tue Jan 25, 2005 14:34

The mighty and mysterious Xymphora has echoed my "iconic war imagery" comments", in his latest post. he also points to another site. If you have not read this blogod - go now!

by redjade Tue Jan 25, 2005 14:40

The writing is already on the wall for the voters in this city 20 kilometres north of Baghdad. “Go to the electoral centre means you will enter hell," said one spray-painted warning. Another wall reads, “Try to erase this graffiti and you will see how we will behead you."

Walls in Ba’qubah have no election banners or photos advertising party platforms and candidate lists. Instead, they are full of condemnations of the current government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and the upcoming January 30 vote.

http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/irq/irq_98_1_eng.txt

by redjade Tue Jan 25, 2005 14:46

The Financial Times gives a clue today, reporting that Iraq's trade ministry has transferred $400 million of Iraq's food-ration budget to Lebanese banks that are, as the paper puts it, "favoured for their secrecy." This represents about 14 percent of Iraq's $2.8 billion annual budget for food rations, upon which 60 percent of the 25-million population is dependent, according to the United Nations.

http://www.tnr.com/blog/iraqd?pid=2468

by mise Tue Jan 25, 2005 15:42

Now Iraqi Farmers are being forced to stop using their own Seed Banks that they have cultivated for millenia to be replaced with US Patented GM Seeds from Monsanto and others. Striking at the roots of their society it could be argued.

by redjade Tue Jan 25, 2005 15:52

For more info....

Order 81: Iraq's new patent law is a declaration of war against farmers
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=67620

by redjade Wed Jan 26, 2005 13:20

Declare Victory in Iraq -- and Come Home, Joe Galloway Says
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000770819

No one can accuse Joe Galloway of being anti-military, "French," or unpatriotic (although some may try). Few reporters speak more convincingly of loving the men and women in uniform. Now a special correspondent and columnist for Knight Ridder, he served four journalistic tours in Vietnam and was the only civilian awarded the Bronze Star during that war, for rescuing wounded American soldiers. He's covered numerous conflicts since, including the Gulf War and, as an embed, the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He also co-authored the acclaimed book We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young. So when he says the United States should declare victory in Iraq and start to withdraw, it has a certain credibility.

[....]

"When I go to Walter Reed Hospital," he explains, "where some of the 10,000 wounded from Iraq end up, I go ward to ward and bed to bed, and reach out to shake a hand, and someone puts a stump in it. These are the best kids we've ever had in the military and this is the best Army and Marine Corps I've seen in my 40 years of marching with them. And I tell you, this war is not worth one of their lives, let alone 1,400 of them."

[....]

He had opened his Jan. 5 column this way: "There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there may be only one good way out of the deepening disaster that is Iraq: Hold the elections on Jan. 30, declare victory and begin leaving." His reasoning: there's no way to truly win and no way Americans will be willing to pay the price of a stalemate, particularly since the war was based on "false premises and bogus assumptions."

by redjade Wed Jan 26, 2005 13:25

Tony Blair has signalled that the US and Britain will begin handing over control of large parts of Iraq to the country's security forces after Sunday's national elections, seeking to underscore the legitimacy of the newly-elected government.

As Iraqis prepare to vote in a poll dogged by the insurgency, Mr Blair ruled out setting a firm deadline for the US and UK to withdraw from the country.

But in a Financial Times interview the prime minister said the coalition was set to agree "timelines" with the new government that would indicate the pace at which Iraqi forces could take control of peaceful parts of the country.

"There are areas where we would be able to hand over to those Iraqi forces. Remember, 14 out of the 18 provinces in Iraq are relatively peaceful and stable."

by redjade Wed Jan 26, 2005 14:07

In a darkened hall, candidates for Iraq's main Shia party sit listening to a turbaned cleric speaking into a microphone. They are being told how to campaign for the election without getting killed.

The instructions are simple - avoid public places and do not reveal your identity, the cleric advised. Most candidates should stay at home as much as possible, he added.

by redjade Wed Jan 26, 2005 14:10

The White House has scrapped its list of Iraq allies known as the 45-member "coalition of the willing," which Washington used to back its argument that the 2003 invasion was a multilateral action, an official said on Friday.

The senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the White House replaced the coalition list with a smaller roster of 28 countries with troops in Iraq sometime after the June transfer of power to an interim Iraqi government.

by pc Wed Jan 26, 2005 15:05

are we still on it, where we on it, or just unofficailly

by redjade Wed Jan 26, 2005 15:37

Coaching Iraq's New Candidates, Discreetly
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36582-2005Jan25.html

Funded by U.S. taxpayers, the Baghdad office of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs stands at the ambitious heart of the American effort to make Iraq a model democracy in the Arab world.

[....]

"They're very good," said Jassim Hilfi, a leader of the Iraqi Communist Party who said he had read every word of the institute's Political Campaign Planning Manual and every other publication handed out. "They benefited us a great deal."

The Communist Party, which predates the Baath Party that persecuted its members for decades, has mounted a vibrant campaign that political observers in Iraq say may outperform expectations in Sunday's balloting.

"They were quite fair," Hilfi said. "We did not feel there was any segregation or playing favorites. Frankly, I'm very grateful. This was the only support we got from outside the country."

-- -- -- -- --

Side note:
The National Democratic Institute for International Affairs is partly funded by the National Endowment for Democracy and has also been doing work in Ukraine recently

http://www.ndi.org/
http://www.ned.org/

the Washington Post article was found at
http://davidholiday.com/weblog/2005/01/those-grateful-iraqi-communists

by jdp Wed Jan 26, 2005 15:37

I saw a nice article here yesterday.

by mise Wed Jan 26, 2005 18:43

According to this article which includes a very valid point regarding the lack of UN Election Monitors in this weekend coming Iraqi election - it claims that the US want Allawi to stay in power and heres why -

"Tipped to oust Allawi is head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq Abdul-Aziz Al Hakim and he is clamouring for American troops to go home pronto.

by redjade Thu Jan 27, 2005 12:51

It's hard for me not to be cynical about Iraq these days. After all, I remember when Iraq was a gathering threat. I remember when Saddam harbored the kinds of terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. I remember when the next smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud. I remember when Iraq's oil revenue would pay for reconstruction. I remember when the idea that stabilizing Iraq would take hundreds of thousands of troops was ludicrous. I remember when Iraq could develop nuclear capabilities within a year. I remember when the mission was accomplished. I remember when killing Uday and Qusay Hussein would end the insurgency. I remember when capturing Saddam Hussein would end the insurgency. I remember when putting the interim government in power would end the insurgency. I remember every time attacking Fallujah would break the back of the insurgency.

Now we're told that the upcoming elections in Iraq are a sign that everything is on the right track, and that once Iraqis elect their own leaders things will get better. I'm doubtful, but I hope I'm wrong.

by redjade Thu Jan 27, 2005 13:45

I think there's a way out of it, maybe. I can tell you one thing. Let's all forget this word “insurgency”. It's one of the most misleading words of all. Insurgency assumes that we had gone to Iraq and won the war and a group of disgruntled people began to operate against us and we then had to do counter-action against them. That would be an insurgency. We are fighting the people we started the war against. We are fighting the Ba'athists plus nationalists. We are fighting the very people that started -- they only choose to fight in different time spans than we want them to, in different places. We took Baghdad easily. It wasn't because [we] won. We took Baghdad because they pulled back and let us take it and decided to fight a war that had been pre-planned that they're very actively fighting.

by redjade Thu Jan 27, 2005 13:50

Vote or no vote, we will kill you
By Pepe Escobar

Of 1 million eligible expatriate voters, only 10% will actually vote. There are no Sunni Arab candidates (in part because the US military killed - or jailed - many Sunni party and tribal leaders). For any Iraqi in Jordan, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia or Turkey, it will be impossible to cross the border and vote: borders will be closed for three days. Inside Iraq there will be curfews - and even traffic will be blocked. Half of all candidates have already withdrawn. And there will be no international monitors. As the names of the roughly 7,700 candidates on 80 party coalition lists are still unknown on the eve of polling day, no wonder the word on Baghdad's streets is that "the Americans gave us the first secret elections in history".

by redjade Fri Jan 28, 2005 13:47

Jan. 27 - President Bush said in an interview on Thursday that he would withdraw American forces from Iraq if the new government that is elected on Sunday asked him to do so, but that he expected Iraq's first democratically elected leaders would want the troops to remain as helpers, not as occupiers.

"I've, you know, heard the voices of the people that presumably will be in a position of responsibility after these elections, although you never know," Mr. Bush said. "But it seems like most of the leadership there understands that there will be a need for coalition troops at least until Iraqis are able to fight."

He did not say who he expected would emerge victorious. But asked if, as a matter of principle, the United States would pull out of Iraq at the request of a new government, he said: "Absolutely. This is a sovereign government. They're on their feet."

Some members of the administration had made similar pledges, but this was the first time Mr. Bush did so.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/28/politics/28prexy.html?ex=1264568400&en=4e50e57e8e0b0bea&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

by redjade Fri Jan 28, 2005 14:13

The Bush administration and the congressional Republicans lament the fact that increasing entitlements promised to veterans have forced them to limit the growth of spending for questionable missile systems and other weapons programs. New funding for their illegal war on Iraq, they claim, is also in jeopardy as long as so much new military spending is set aside for veterans' programs.

[....]

The Pentagon plans to reduce deferred benefit packages and increase one-time cash awards for new enlistees in the hopes of reducing, even eliminating, long-term benefit programs. In other words, recruiters will ask young people to sign up with enticements of several thousand-dollar payments and forget to tell them that they could have more for college. Further, one Pentagon official said that they'd like to change existing benefit plans to cause older service members to retire early and thus have smaller pensions and fewer benefits. Meanwhile, Republicans are blocking an effort to eliminate premium payments for some retirees who receive Medicare. Also, the reliance on reservists in Bush's war on Iraq to participate in longer terms of active duty without adequate increases in pay is a de facto pay cut that affects thousands of service members who share equally the risks of military service.

by mise Fri Jan 28, 2005 19:45

“I’d been in Fallujah for a week and all I’d seen was tough military tactics,” he tells me, “They are arresting people and putting them in these trucks, blindfolded and tied up. Everywhere I looked all I saw was utter devastation.”

He spoke with many families who told him one horror story after another, death after death after death.

“Then today, the military brings in a dozen Humvees and ground troops to basically seal off a small area near a market,” he continues, “In the middle of them is a CNN camera crew filming troops throwing candy to kids and these guys in orange vests start cleaning the streets around them.”

by TheTroll Fri Jan 28, 2005 23:25

I just saw on the news how Iraqi Americans get to vote in Iraq's election.

Are Iraqi citizens of "Old Europe" also being alowed to vote in Iraq's election???

by redjade Fri Jan 28, 2005 23:40

Baghdad kicked into panic mode three days before the election, with terrified Iraqis stockpiling food and evacuating homes near polling places Thursday for fear that insurgents would make good on threats to disrupt Sunday's vote with violence.

At least 15 Iraqis and a U.S. Marine were killed Thursday. Insurgents blew up six polling places, detonated car bombs in three cities, triggered at least three roadside bombs and gunned down several Iraqi policemen, according to the U.S. military and Iraqi authorities.

Iraqis who support the parliamentary election and those who oppose it agreed on one thing: They expect such attacks to grow much, much worse.

"How much fear is there? A lot of fear. A whole lot of fear," said Dhikra Hussein, 25, who lives a block from a polling center. "Our neighbors are all gone. We've bought 3 kilos of everything we need."

by redjade Sat Jan 29, 2005 00:10

The Widening Chasm Among Conservatives
by Mike Whitney
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney01272005.html

On the one hand, we have perhaps the most widely respected (conservative) policy experts alive today, advising the administration to withdraw from Iraq. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft and James Baker have joined the ranks of anti-war Leftists in calling for an immediate withdrawal of all American troops. They have noted the failed attempts by the Bush administration to establish even minimal security or to achieve the overall objectives of the invasion. With Iraq tilting precipitously towards civil war, and with America's prestige irreparably damaged, their protestations should be regarded as an appeal for a return to political sanity.

Clearly these staunch supporters of American supremacy would never accept such a humbling defeat if there was even the remotest possibility of success.

by redjade Sat Jan 29, 2005 00:37

from
http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20050128

by redjade Sat Jan 29, 2005 14:22

16 yr old blogger girl from Mosul says:

Today, we have American strykers in my street, I don't know what they're doing but mom was going out to give some pancakes for the neighbors and she was face-to-face with an American so she just went back in.. She then went upstairs to the roof and delivered the pancakes from there. Our neighbor was crying because of the situation..

[....]

They're announcing on Mosul TV that the names of the people in the lists of the elections will be announced soon! Imagine, you have elections, you have 3 days till the elections, and you still don't know who you're going to vote for! I don't know, is this really abnormal? Or am I a little confused?

by redjade Sat Jan 29, 2005 18:13

War News for Saturday, January 29, 2005
go here for links → http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/2005_01_01_dailywarnews_archive.html#110700820872510254

Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed by small arms fire in Baghdad ambush.
Bring ‘em on: Three Iraqi soldiers killed, four wounded in rocket attack near Duluiyah.
Bring ‘em on: Three Iraqi soldiers, five civilians killed by suicide bomber near Khanaqin.
Bring ‘em on: Three US soldiers killed, one wounded by roadside bomb in Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: Five Iraqis killed by car bomb at Baghdad power plant.
Bring ‘em on Six Iraqi soldiers killed in Ramadi ambush.
Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed, three wounded by roadside bomb in Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: Heavy fighting reported in Samarra.

by redjade Sat Jan 29, 2005 18:30

The United States military is too small for the responsibilities we are asking it to assume. Those responsibilities are real and important. They are not going away. The United States will not and should not become less engaged in the world in the years to come. But our national security, global peace and stability, and the defense and promotion of freedom in the post-9/11 world require a larger military force than we have today. The administration has unfortunately resisted increasing our ground forces to the size needed to meet today's (and tomorrow's) missions and challenges.

So we write to ask you and your colleagues in the legislative branch to take the steps necessary to increase substantially the size of the active duty Army and Marine Corps. While estimates vary about just how large an increase is required, and Congress will make its own determination as to size and structure, it is our judgment that we should aim for an increase in the active duty Army and Marine Corps, together, of at least 25,000 troops each year over the next several years.

[....]

Respectfully,

Peter Beinart, Jeffrey Bergner, Daniel Blumenthal, Max Boot, Eliot Cohen, Ivo H. Daalder, Thomas Donnelly, Michele Flournoy, Frank F. Gaffney, Jr., Reuel Marc Gerecht, Lt. Gen. Buster C. Glosson (USAF, retired), Bruce P. Jackson, Frederick Kagan, Robert Kagan, Craig Kennedy, Paul Kennedy, Col. Robert Killebrew (USA, retired), William Kristol, Will Marshall, Clifford May, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey (USA, retired), Daniel McKivergan, Joshua Muravchik, Steven J. Nider   Michael O'Hanlon, Mackubin Thomas Owens, Ralph Peters, Danielle Pletka, Stephen P. Rosen  , Major Gen. Robert H. Scales (USA, retired), Randy Scheunemann, Gary Schmitt, Walter Slocombe, James B. Steinberg

by mise Sun Jan 30, 2005 00:16

Some nice holiday snaps here - take a sick bag. You were warned!!

http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=iraq_war&Number=293325449&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=21∂=

by Yoshie Furuhashi Sun Jan 30, 2005 01:43

The January 30, 2005 elections in Iraq are the textbook definition of "demonstration elections." Unlike Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who issued "a fatwa saying all Shiia men and women have an obligation to vote in the upcoming election," the Moktada al-Sadr faction "uttered not a single word about the vote" at Friday Prayers, according to the New York Times, foreshadowing "a less than overwhelming voter turnout in many parts of Iraq" (Dexter Filkins, "Shiite Faction Ready to Shun Sunday's Election in Iraq," January 29, 2005). The Times insinuates that the Sadr faction are against democracy itself, solely by virtue of their quiet refusal to browbeat their vast following into embracing the elections tomorrow. Needless to say, the idea that it is people's right to evaluate whether or not an election is free, fair, and democratic and that boycotting an unfree, unfair, and undemocratic election is a time-honored tactic of democrats everywhere is unspeakable in the corporate media.
FULL TEXT:
http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/01/sadrs-subtle-defiance-of-demonstration.html

by prion Sun Jan 30, 2005 05:34

Is there some reason why Iraqi Americans are voting in Iraq's election??? Do Irish Americans get to vote in Ireland's elections???

It looks like Bush and the neocons are not the only ones in America to think they have a right to force thier will onto Iraqis.

by mr data Sun Jan 30, 2005 13:24

many people fled the country over thte years in fear of their lives, the plan is to give them a voice in the election, it's not just those who fled to the US who get a vote but anyone who can prove that they they were born there.

by jack white Sun Jan 30, 2005 13:29

I am an Iraqi woman, and I am boycotting Sunday's elections. Women who do vote will be voting for an enslaved future. Surely, say those who support these elections, after decades of tyranny, here at last is a form of democracy, imperfect, but democracy nevertheless?

http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20050129131620761

by redjade Sun Jan 30, 2005 14:02

This Election Will Change the World. But Not in the Way the
Americans Imagined
    By Robert Fisk
    The Independent U.K.
Saturday 29 January 2005
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.impeach.bush/msg/ec8a84725c025af1?dmode=print

Shias are about to inherit Iraq, but the election tomorrow that
will bring them to power is creating deep fears among the Arab kings
and dictators of the Middle East that their Sunni leadership is under
threat.

[....]

But outside Iraq, Arab leaders are talking of a Shia "Crescent"
that will run from Iran through Iraq to Lebanon via Syria, whose
Alawite leadership forms a branch of Shia Islam. The underdogs of the
Middle East, repressed under the Ottomans, the British and then the
pro-Western dictators of the region, will be a new and potent
political force.

    While Shia political parties in Iraq have promised that they will
not demand an Islamic republic - their speeches suggest that they have
no desire to recreate the Iranian revolution in their country - their
inevitable victory in an election that Iraq's Sunnis will largely
boycott mean that this country will become the first Arab nation to be
led by Shias.

    On the surface, this may not be apparent; Iyad Allawi, the former
CIA agent and current Shia "interim" Prime Minister, is widely tipped
as the only viable choice for the next prime minister - but the kings
and emirs of the Gulf are facing the prospect with trepidation.

by pc Sun Jan 30, 2005 14:05

don't have any references to back it up or clarify it but was watching sky news and it had live scenes of of a small scuffle at the Glasgow polling station, where I *think* a fight broke between Iraqi kurds (who the reporters said were the most eager to vote in the UK ) got pissed off with a group protesting who were saying they shoudn't be voting...

by eeekkkk Sun Jan 30, 2005 14:24

i believe absolutely nothing i see on sky on big days

it is a propaganda operation thru and thru

when irishheads were in genoa my dad called me cos he had seen a poll on sky that said 50 percent supported the protesters and 51 percent didnt

it does not add up

sky says 78 percent turnout

if that is true the us will have to leave

if that is not true the us will have to leave

sky out of erron ;-)

the tv station not the real sky

allvegatablesareequalbutsomearemoreequalthanothers

by mise Sun Jan 30, 2005 16:37

Its not just American Iraqis, 125,000 Israelis who [b]used to live there[/b], are elligible to vote.

I was living in London during the "referendum years" - never got to vote on SFA, which rather annoyed me!

by redjade Sun Jan 30, 2005 18:52

Many countries allow citizens to vote from other countries - with varying restrictions on local/national polls etc.

nothing wrong with that and ireland should offer the same me thinks.

but the absurdity in this case is that there are better conditions for voting for Iraqis anywhere BUT in Iraq.

of course, even Iraqis outside Iraq couldn't even know the names of the candidates they were voting for since many candidates still have not revealed their names. The US imposed elections are done with some kind of modyified 'List System'

All of which makes it a pretty poor excuse of an election.

-- -- --

Party List Voting
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/BeginnningReading/howprwor.htm
''How It Works. Legislators are elected in large, multi-member districts. Each party puts up a list or slate of candidates equal to the number of seats in the district.''

by mise Sun Jan 30, 2005 19:40

Could you see the Isarelis allowing 125,000 exiled Palestinians the right to vote in Israels elections? Hello-o!

by redjade Sun Jan 30, 2005 20:11

nope - i couldn't imagine the Israelis allowing that.

but my comment had nothing to do with the Israelis or palestinians - it was about exiles/migrants voting in their native countries.

Its not uncommon and its not a bad thing - but in the case of this Iraq 'election' it is wrong because these elections are not legit.

by redjade Sun Jan 30, 2005 21:04

When Robots Do the Killing
A New Weapon Can Sanitize War, and That's Tragic
by David L. Ulin
Los Angeles Times
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0130-03.htm

Late last week, in a parking lot in New Jersey, the U.S. Army unveiled what may be the future of war: 3-foot-tall robotic "soldiers," outfitted with tank tracks, night vision and mounted automatic weapons capable of firing more than 300 rounds at a burst. Known as SWORDS (Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems), these battle bots are on the leading edge of a new kind of warfare, in which — or so the argument goes — our troops will one day remain hidden (and, presumably, protected) while engaging the enemy by remote control. The Army intends to deploy 18 SWORDS units to Iraq in the spring, marking the first time robots have been used to fight and kill human beings one on one.

[....]

Yet something more disturbing is at work, a sense of willful disassociation, as if, with enough distance, we might remove ourselves from what war is. Here too the military mimics Hollywood. For "Star Wars," it's been reported, storytellers relied on battle bots to take the blood out of the onscreen killing and render moral questions moot.

A similar logic fuels the ban on photos of flag-draped coffins — if we don't see them, they're not there — and it's no stretch to suggest that SWORDS, and other high-tech weapons now being developed by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, will further sanitize our point of view.

What can't be sanitized, however, is the robot's deadly efficiency; remove the human from the weapon, and problems like recoil and breath control are eliminated, allowing the robot to hit a nickel-sized target at 328 yards. In one test, a SWORDS scored 70 out of 70 bull's-eyes.
 

by mmmeeekkk really Sun Jan 30, 2005 23:33

.

by redjade Mon Jan 31, 2005 02:02

BAGHDAD—Almost one hour since the polls opened here, I've only heard one faint boom, and it was far away. So far, so good, knock on wood. I'll be heading out shortly after we've had our security guys make an assessment of the safety situation.

But one thing is different. Before, as a Westerner, I felt a bull's-eye on me whenever I left compound. Today, I think the kidnapping threat is less (the insurgents have better things to do today) so everyone on the street is a target. This gives me a feeling of solidarity and responsibility. If the Iraqis can go out there and risk their lives in the lines to vote, then the least I can do is the same to cover them doing it.

http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000858.php

by redjade Mon Jan 31, 2005 02:05

A Mixed Story
Sunday, January 30, 2005
http://www.juancole.com/2005/01/mixed-story-im-just-appalled-by.html

I'm just appalled by the cheerleading tone of US news coverage of the so-called elections in Iraq on Sunday. I said on television last week that this event is a "political earthquake" and "a historical first step" for Iraq. It is an event of the utmost importance, for Iraq, the Middle East, and the world. All the boosterism has a kernel of truth to it, of course. Iraqis hadn't been able to choose their leaders at all in recent decades, even by some strange process where they chose unknown leaders. But this process is not a model for anything, and would not willingly be imitated by anyone else in the region. The 1997 elections in Iran were much more democratic, as were the 2002 elections in Bahrain and Pakistan.

by redjade Mon Jan 31, 2005 02:11

''U.S. Army soldiers set up a banner giving instructions how to react in case of an attack in the heavily guarded Green Zone in Baghdad''
http://apnews.myway.com/image/20050129/IRAQ_ELECTION.sff_BAG116_20050129064127.html?date=20050129&docid=D87U1JH00

by redjade Mon Jan 31, 2005 02:48

Geraldo Rivera....
''Roll the video. There are men, women, families coming. They are casting their ballot for the first time. It was so inspiring. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my entire life. It really is like the Berlin Wall going down in 1989. It really is like the beginning, like the dawn of the civil rights era, when black people could vote for the first time. It is the most amazing sight. Only a hard-bitten cynic, only a person with absolutely no upside to their feeling of optimism, could look askance at what is happening, truly happening today.''

transcript:
http://homepage.mac.com/mkoldys/iblog/C168863457/E1093199074/index.html

4meg video / Windoze Format
http://movies.ziaspace.com/GeraldoRivera.wmv

by lithuanian glasnot Mon Jan 31, 2005 12:35

http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/0/28.html?id_issue=10744525

Gorby, the pizza munching ex commie leader of the URSS and current head honcho of the international green cross, (who worry about eco-disasters) is well known to us all. He as the mark on his head!!!! Mikhail has described the iraqi elections as a profanation, dismissing pictures of wholesome local lovely girls dropping bits of paper in wheelie bins as silliness and reminding all the world that you can't impose democracy, glasnost or perestroika at the point of a gun, be it artilery or tank.

where's the swp?

by redjade Mon Jan 31, 2005 15:48

from Iraqi Bloggers....

'Iraqis who don't vote that they will not get their monthly food rations.'
http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/2005/01/vote-for-food.html

'People in many areas are being told that if they don’t vote- Sunnis and Shia alike- the food and supply rations we are supposed to get monthly will be cut off. We’ve been getting these rations since the beginning of the nineties and for many families, it’s their main source of sustenance. What sort of democracy is it when you FORCE people to go vote for someone or another they don’t want?'
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2005_01_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#110640049776566608

by redjade Mon Jan 31, 2005 15:53

Acts of Bravery
By BOB HERBERT
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/31/opinion/31herbert.html?ex=1264914000&en=c5ceeb190bb1655d&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

Much of the electorate was voting blind. Half or more of those who went to the polls believed they were voting for a president. They weren't. They were electing a transitional national assembly that will have as its primary task the drafting of a constitution. The Washington Post noted that because of the extreme violence that preceded the election "almost none of the 7,700 candidates for the National Assembly campaigned publicly or even announced their names."

[....]

Iraqis may have voted yesterday. But they live in occupied territory, and the occupiers have other things on their minds than the basic wishes of the Iraqi people. That's not democracy. That's a recipe for more war.

by redjade Mon Jan 31, 2005 15:59

First of all, there is serious question about how democratic the elections actually were....

Second, Iraqis do not and will not select their prime minister or president. Instead, Iraq’s elections created a 275 member National Assembly....

Third, the elections in Iraq will not result in local representation for Iraqis. Under Paul Bremmer, the U.S. decided that rather than divide Iraq into localities, the entire country would be a single constituency.

Fourth, while exit polls of questionable accuracy indicate a 60% turn-out by registered voters, there are entire regions of Iraq that never had the opportunity to register....

Fifth, the Independent Iraqi Electoral Commission, whose members were appointed by Bremmer before the U.S. handed over “power” in June, set the rules for the elections. The Commission has absolute power to bar any candidate or organization and has done so.....

Sixth, and most significantly, a new Iraqi government does not mean a free Iraq. There is no free press in Iraq - stories must favor the government’s point of view....

click here for more info and links....
http://politicsofdissent.blogspot.com/2005/01/iraqi-elections-bushs-resounding.html

by Noel Mon Jan 31, 2005 16:09

Reading some of the comments on this thread would lead one to think the Iraqi elections were a bad thing.
Viewing everything through an anti-Bush prism can have that effect on people.

The terrorists are losing.
The Iraqi people are the victors.
Let freedom reign.

by redjade Mon Jan 31, 2005 17:05

So my dad and I did a live remote with MSNBC today, and we came on three seperate times to answer the questions

[....]

My father was a freedom fighter in Iraq, a founder of several Assyrian pro-democracy groups, and was arrested and tortured; he was also the victim of an assassination attempt.

[....]

They asked us variations of the same basic questions all three times we were on, although once I was asked if I thought the elections were going to effect real change. I don't remember exactly what I said (and I can't find MSNBC transcripts on their site) but it was to the effect that although voting is great, it doesn't make a democracy--that we needed to build the institutions a democracy needs and ensure security--so that "American troops can leave Iraq as quickly as possible and return home safely."

[....]

They asked why I, as an American-born citizen, felt it was important to vote. I replied that because people in Iraq were struggling to build a democracy, we shouldn't flunk our duty to support that struggle if we had the opportunity--and casting a ballot was showing solidarity. I also said that as Americans, we wanted to see the occupation end as soon as possible to bring our troops home. I was hoping the follow up to that would give me an opportunity to explain that enthusiastic participation in this election did not imply support for the Bush administration or the war (although I did initially support the war), but rather support for our troops and Iraqis.

by redjade Mon Jan 31, 2005 17:21

Propaganda on the web, you say? Shock! Impossible!

No big surprise in that of course - this site included.

Here's an interesting story of how people on the web tracked down a propaganda piece by some US Republican Party hacks.

They used a photo which was of an American soldier (a medic) who tried to show some humanity to a kid who got caught in the crossfire between US Troops and the Iraqis.

The medic was reported to have said: 'If anything good comes from this nonsense, I haven't seen it yet.'

but today, the US Republican website http://www.iowapresidentialwatch.com twisted the image into 'She's glad he's there. Are You?'

the 'artist' said in her defence:
'By the way, I have an entirely different child and entirely different face on the man holding the child.'

-- -- --

Found info at
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/30/155442/365

Propaganda outed at
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/showthread.php?p=12485#post12485

Full sized photoshopped agit-prop at
http://www.iowapresidentialwatch.com/FreedomMatters/AreYou.htm

The Original Photo

US Republican Agit-Prop

by redjade Mon Jan 31, 2005 19:23

MSNBC:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6882523/
Jan. 29, 2005
In the run-up to Iraq's elections, the State Department's spokesman this week ticked off the final markers of progress: 130 planeloads of voting materials had landed in Iraq, including 90,000 ballot boxes and 60 million ballots....

--- --- ---

Blogger asks Imad Khadduri....

There are about 25 million Iraqis, and about 15 million of them are elligible to vote (many are indeed boycotting it).
What will they be doing with the extra 45 million ballots?

http://abutamam.blogspot.com/2005/01/stability.html

by Yoshie Furuhashi Mon Jan 31, 2005 20:34

Where did the Independent [sic] Election Commission of Iraq get the turnout figure of 8 million voters? The answer is that's exactly the same number the commission predicted more than two weeks before the elections. That's a sign of how scripted the Iraqi elections were.
FULL TEXT:
http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/01/voter-turnout-in-iraqi-elections.html

by righteous pragmatist Tue Feb 01, 2005 10:59

Maybe because 8 million people actually voted?
You are apperently unable to believe that the Iraqis voted in democratic elections on Sunday rejecting the threats of Al-Zarqawi and other Islamic fascists.
The people of Iraq won these rights after George W. Bush ignored the anti-war movement invaded Iraq and defeated the tyannical regime of Saddam Hussein.
Iraq is now a democracy and the so-called "insurgents" who the anti-war movement trumpet as "freedom fighters" have been exposed for what they are -terrorists who do not care about the freedom of the Iraqi people.
The Anti-War movement have been exposed as supporters of tyranny and terrorism.

by fang - "my blog is your blog is our bloggies" Tue Feb 01, 2005 11:19

Bush did not ignore the global pacifist movement.
The sustained work of the global pacifist movement not only mobilised millions of people in the West for the first time in many decades to declaring they were "anti-War", It also changed the land artilery invasion plan and caused new diplomatic relations with Turkey, the Kurdish people, the allocation of Basra to the British, a changed relationship to the Iranians.
The interest in and opposition to the conflict ensured the presence of media forces of all types and bolstered a new European global position on conflict comital resolution and practise, it meant attention and popular opinion was finally harnessed which had previously been absent amongst students, workers and the like for all the other wars which constantly wage in the planet in the Americas and Africa and Asia.
In short it meant the war was less destructive than it might otherwise have been. What ever the cries the popular pacifist movements chose to use "No War for Oil!", or "neither bush nor saddam", or "we stop war" or "we want peace" or "freed space against war", in time it will become apparant that the mobilisations were essential to guaranteeing proper international institutions of conflict resolution and conflict arbitration, re-inforced international institutions.
Rightous pragmatist and many others on the other side of the global pacifists, had better think a bit further back and a bit further forward.

Peace = Saleem = Pax = Shalom = Paix = Mir = Siochain.

by righteous pragmatist Tue Feb 01, 2005 11:34

The Anti-war movement constantly complain that the invasion of Iraq was contrary to some metaphysical concept they call "international law". They marched in the streets in their millions around the world to oppose the invasion of Iraq.
The Anti-War didn't want (like you appear to say) a more humane war or a more accountable war against Saddam.They wanted NO war.
If no war had been fought Saddam and his sons and his henchmen would still be in power and their torture chambers would still be full to overflowing and Iraqis would never have voted in a democratic election.
But there WAS a war and the people of Iraq are FREE.
Thank George W. Bush for that.
Don't thank the Anti-War Movement.

by Noel Tue Feb 01, 2005 13:00

Millions of Iraqis will be pointing purple dyed fingers at the world's appeasers; the UN, France, Russia, Germany, the anti-war movement.

War. What is it good for?

by mise Tue Feb 01, 2005 14:41

.

by jdp Tue Feb 01, 2005 15:34

Talking about Spin..lmao

"Wreckage from the Election was strewn over a wide area when it hit the Country, prompting "experts" to speculate it could have been hit by a media conspiracy to make Bush and Blair "look good", although they questioned parts of the video."

http://www.dundalk.no-ip.info/?q=node/91

by pc Tue Feb 01, 2005 15:49

he keeps quoting turnout out as an indicator of of sucess of validity of an election, as pointed out saddam had elections with highturnouts it just the elections were rigged, although fairplay to those who did vote for whatever reason.

by righteous pragmatist Tue Feb 01, 2005 17:17

Saddam never held elections.
He held "elections".
In September 2002 he supposedly got 100% of the vote with a turnout of 100% of the voters. That was rigged.
This time 72% of the 14 million voters turned out to vote. And I would imagine that some of the parties which were elected will want American troops to withdraw as soon as possible so Iraqis can run the country for themselves and fight the terrorists themselves.
America will be only too happy to oblige them.

by Yoshie Furuhashi Tue Feb 01, 2005 17:20

Take a look at an object rescued from the memory hole. It's a New York Times article from the era of the Vietnam War: Peter Grose, "U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote" (September 4, 1967, p. 2). Its lead paragraph reads: "United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting."
FULL TEXT:
http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/02/us-encouraged-by-vietnam-vote.html

by mise Tue Feb 01, 2005 17:31

Saddam was the sort of leader necessary to stop the various tribes and religious groups and ethnic divisions within the country ripping each other apart - exactly what has happened since the invasion. Thats why it was easy to topple him. Why do you think that the British drew the map of Iraq like that in the first place?

When Thatcher was stopping milk being handed out free to schoolchildren in the 80's Saddam was doing the exact opposite. She wasn't far from being an evil dictator herself.


When Tito finally "died" in Jugoslavia the country tore itself apart - and it's not all rosy there years later.

by Checkered Reality Tue Feb 01, 2005 17:32

If you are seriously claiming that you or anyone else knows how many people turned out to vote (let alone how many ballots were legitimate) a mere couple of days after a country which is reduced to rubble, where the roads can't be traveled due to fear of attack, where an UNKNOWN number of people have been killed by US bombing, where there isn't even running water in many areas then I put it to you that you're a liar.

(Oh yeah, and 72.24345% of statistics are lies. It's a fact)

by as do many other bryan suits Tue Feb 01, 2005 17:36

or is my tinfoil hat on too tight today ;-)

by Checkered Reality Tue Feb 01, 2005 17:43

His ill-mannered, contentless scrawls manage to make the USA look like a bunch of nuts unwilling to countenance rational argument. He never posts anything to back up his assertions, descends into abuse and invective at the drop of a hat and will _never_ sustain an argument. I think you'll find that he's acting on his own and that no professional agency would have anything to do with him.

by as do many other Jeff gannons Tue Feb 01, 2005 17:52

exact same talking points.

I don't think rp is clever thus my ;-)

but I'm not so sure he isn't paid to do what he does - just like them dam prefessers

by lefttalkingpointsonvietnamfrombillmon Tue Feb 01, 2005 17:57

.

by mise Tue Feb 01, 2005 17:59

.

by Mick Tue Feb 01, 2005 18:00

In another blow to a nation already reeling from months of U.S. occupation, a new World Heath Organization report suggested that Iraqis may face another humanitarian disaster caused by exposure to potentially harmful finger ink during Sunday's nationwide elections.

According to the report, the ink used to mark fingers of as many as 8 million Iraqis contained traces of a chemical, Dimoxycyclene K-phosphate 3, which has been associated with elevated lesions in laboratory animals. Sold under the trade name of Dyphex, the chemical is used as an additive in various inks and dyes as a fixative and preservative.

Critics noted that the not-yet banned chemical is produced by a RayTel, a Georgia-based firm whose executives contributed over $1800 to the 2004 Bush campaign. Records also show that over 20 gallons of the finger ink was transported to Iraq via Kellogg, Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, the controversial firm once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney.

"In order to avoid risk, it is critical that Iraqis keep internal consumption of finger ink to less than 100 millileters per day," said WHO spokesperson Francois Garres. "We are desperately trying to get the word out, but we have not gotten the good cooperation with US military officials."

Garres said efforts to educate Iraqis on the dangers of Dyphex were also hampered by widespread street celebrations.

by mise Tue Feb 01, 2005 18:07

reading earlier that Iraqis were going home and dipping their fingers in bleach so that they couldnt be identified, as having voted, by "insurgents". the bleach was prolly also courtesy of KBR/Haliburton.

by watcher Tue Feb 01, 2005 18:23

here is the original photo by another photographer who was at the scene. The little girl and her brother and parents were "caught in crossfire" with alleged "insurgents".

by redjade Tue Feb 01, 2005 18:37

According to the UN and USAID funded 'ACE Project' ( http://www.aceproject.org )
'electoral integrity' requires:
• a generally accepted code of ethical behaviour in politics;
• an electoral framework that is equitable and fair;
• fair, transparent and impartial administration of the elections;
• political freedom to participate freely and equally in an atmosphere without fear;
• accountability of all participants;
• built in mechanisms, including monitoring by civil society and a free media, to safeguard integrity and ensure accountability; and
• enforcement.
http://www.aceproject.org/main/english/ei/ei10.htm

Rightous, if you scroll up through all the posts that I have blogged on to this newswire post you will see that most if not all of these conditions for 'electoral integrity' are NOT met by Bush's so called election.

Just because people dropped a paper ballot in a box it does not mean it was an election - that is why I said these elections were not much different from Saddam's in the past. They are not free and fair.

That said, I'm sure that most of the people who did 'vote' want a real democracy and a free and sovereign Iraq. A sovereign Iraq is something the Bush Administration will never allow.

A question for Righteous:
Would you support a Iraq-wide referendum on the US/K occupation?

A simple ballot that asks: 'Should they stay or should they go?'

by redjade Tue Feb 01, 2005 18:44

During a news conference, President Ghazi al-Yawer was asked whether the presence of foreign troops might be fueling the Sunni Arab revolt by encouraging rebel attacks.

"It's only complete nonsense to ask the troops to leave in this chaos and this vacuum of power," al-Yawer, a Sunni Arab, said.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050201/D87VO81G0.html

by redjade Tue Feb 01, 2005 19:27

U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote
Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror
by Peter Grose, Special to the New York Times

WASHINGTON, Sept. 3-- United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.

According to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong.

republished at
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_01/005556.php

by redjade Tue Feb 01, 2005 21:31

Seeking Iraq's oil prize
Government may allow foreign petroleum firms to invest

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/01/26/BUG6IB0AEJ1.DTL

The Iraqi government that emerges from Sunday's election may open its oil business to foreign investment, and international petroleum companies are jockeying to curry favor with the war-torn country.

Firms from the United States and Europe -- including Royal Dutch/Shell Group and the Bay Area's own ChevronTexaco -- are literally working for free on certain engineering and training projects to get their feet in the door.

[....]

"There is a strong belief, which should not be underestimated, that the whole purpose of the war was to gain U.S. control over Iraqi oil," said Walid Khadduri, editor of the Middle East Economic Survey, in a recent speech. "It is going to take a good deal of persuasion and a great deal of transparency to convince a majority of public opinion that the gradual privatization of the oil industry is for the good of the people and neither a war prize nor a way for carpetbaggers to get rich quickly."

[....]

Only 17 of the country's 80 discovered oil fields have been developed, according to the U.S. government's Energy Information Administration.

by redjade Wed Feb 02, 2005 17:22

Responding to this essay Christopher Hitchens writes the following...

Flashback to the 60's: A Sinking Sensation of Parallels Between Iraq and Vietnam
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/29/politics/29viet.html?ex=1264741200&en=cf642f455de5158e&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland


Beating a Dead Parrot
Why Iraq and Vietnam have nothing whatsoever in common.
By Christopher Hitchens
http://slate.msn.com/id/2112895/

In Vietnam the deep-rooted Communist Party was against the partition of the country and against the American intervention. It called for a boycott of any election that was not an all-Vietnam affair. In Iraq, the deep-rooted Communist Party is in favor of the regime change and has been an enthusiastic participant in the elections as well as an opponent of any attempt to divide the country on ethnic or confessional lines. (Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is not even an Iraqi, hates the Kurds and considers the religion of most Iraqis to be a detestable heresy: not a mistake that even the most inexperienced Viet Cong commander would have been likely to make.)

[....]

I suppose it's obvious that I was not a supporter of the Vietnam War. Indeed, the principles of the antiwar movement of that epoch still mean a good deal to me. That's why I retch every time I hear these principles recycled, by narrow minds or in a shallow manner, in order to pass off third-rate excuses for Baathism or jihadism. But one must also be capable of being offended objectively. The Vietnam/Iraq babble is, from any point of view, a busted flush. It's no good. It's a stiff. It's passed on. It has ceased to be. It's joined the choir invisible. It's turned up its toes. It's gone. It's an ex-analogy.

by redjade Fri Feb 04, 2005 12:25

In northern Iraq, protests have repeatedly broken out over the last few days in several cities, where officials claim that hundreds of thousands of citizens, many of them Kurdish Christians, were not able to vote because balloting materials arrived inexplicably late.

A huge crowd of Shiite Muslims returning to southern Iraq from their holy pilgrimage to Mecca charged Monday that they and hundreds of others like them had been deliberately kept from coming back to their country in time to vote in Sunday's election.

by redjade Fri Feb 04, 2005 12:26

Sunni Arab politicians in the ethnically unstablenorthern Iraqi province of Kirkuk claim that their constituents were shortchanged during Sunday's elections by a scarcity of ballots in their districts.

The complaints indicate that local elections, which were held simultaneously with the parliamentary vote, are proving divisive in ethnically and religiously diverse provinces such as Kirkuk, where Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Turkom

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/583e9bea-7588-11d9-9608-00000e2511c8.html

by redjade Fri Feb 04, 2005 16:45

As Iraqis Celebrate, the Kurds Hesitate
Peter W. Galbraith

Of all the remarkable things that happened at the Iraqi polls on Sunday, perhaps the most striking was pulled off by the Kurdish independence movement. With almost no advance notice, hundreds of Kurds erected tents at official polling places in Iraq's Kurdish areas and asked those emerging from the ballot booths to take part in an informal referendum on whether Kurdistan should be independent or part of Iraq. From what I saw, almost everyone stopped to vote in the referendum, and the tally was running 11 to 1 in favor of independence.

This news will not be welcomed by American and British officials, who have studiously ignored the Kurdish independence movement, pretending that the unity of Iraq is not at issue in the country's transition to democracy. Those who organized the independence referendum - mostly representatives of Kurdish nongovernmental organizations - had sought a meeting last February with the American administrator in Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer III, to show him their petition with 1.7 million signatures asking for a vote on independence. Neither Mr. Bremer nor his main deputies would see the group. Thus the actual voting on Sunday caught coalition officials by surprise - in part because Kurdistan, strongly supportive of the American presence in Iraq, has not been a priority for our diplomacy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/01/opinion/01galbraith.html?ex=1265000400&en=47b5ec698aef59a0&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

by redjade Fri Feb 04, 2005 17:36

Julian Manyon, ITV Correspondent:

I mean, we've got a situation in Mosul, for example, where American troops, we now discover because the Iraqi employees of the election organization have deserted en masse, it's American soldiers who will be transporting the ballot boxes around when they are full of votes. This is really very far from ideal, and if it were happening in any other country - - I mean, one could mention Ukraine, for example -- there would be a wild chorus of international protest.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0501/29/i_c.01.html

by mise Fri Feb 04, 2005 20:34

xymphora is spot on again.

btw did any body notice that the Georgian Prime Minister died in a "mysterious gassing accident" 2 days ago, it hardly made the mainstream.

He was opposed to a gas/oil pipeline apparently, the irony of which is not lost on me. The President of Georgia has taken over his duties as PM.

This stinks.

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=uri:2005-02-03T150345Z_01_CHA323077_RTRUKOC_0_GEORGIA-PREMIER.xml

by tory press - har har admiral says bring round to "port-side" now please- steady as we go. Wed Mar 16, 2005 13:39

Iraq's new parliament has met for the first time more than six weeks after it was elected in historic polls, but the country is still without a government as rival blocs bicker over a coalition deal.

The National Assembly's 275 members, elected during Jan 30 elections, convened amid tight security in the heavily-guarded Green Zone with US helicopter gunships hovering overhead.

A series of blasts shook the windows of the buildings as insurgents tried to disrupt the meeting despite several streets in Baghdad being closed to traffic.

The Shia Islamist alliance that won 140 of the seats and the Kurdish coalition that came second with 75 seats are deadlocked in negotiations over a government.

There is tentative agreement that Ibrahim Jaafari of the Shi'ite Dawa party will be prime minister and Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani will be president, with a Sunni Arab candidate probably being offered the job of parliament speaker.

But talks have stalled over Kurdish demands to expand their northern autonomous zone to include the strategic oil city of Kirkuk and the fate of the Kurdish peshmerga militias, which Shias want to be absorbed in Iraq's official security forces.

The Kurds also want guarantees Iraq will remain secular.

Politicians had hoped that an agreement would have been reached by today's parliament meeting.

Iyad Allawi, current prime minister, whose bloc came third in the polls, will remain caretaker leader until a deal is agreed.

According to Iraq's interim constitution, the National Assembly must agree on a president and two vice presidents by a two-thirds majority.

These officials will then appoint a prime minister.

The delay in forming a government has angered many Iraqis, after more than eight million people defied suicide bombers and mortar attacks to vote.

Some Iraqis say the political deadlock is playing into the hands of insurgents determined to wreck the political process.

The elections were a cornerstone of US plans to hand more responsibility to Iraqi politicians and security forces so foreign troops can eventually leave.


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