Iraq: We vote, then we throw you out
By Pepe Escobar
asiatimes: First, a quick look at the environment ahead of Thursday's elections in Iraq. Political assassinations, party headquarters burned, abductions (all largely unreported by Western corporate media). A former prime minister, Iyad Allawi - widely known in Baghdad as "Saddam without a moustache" - saying on the record that human rights in President George W Bush's Iraq are worse than they were under Saddam.
Current Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari's Da'wa Party accusing Allawi of defending the occupiers. Allawi accusing Jaafari's government of corruption. Former Pentagon asset Ahmad Chalabi's campaign posters with the inscription, "We liberated Iraq."
A network of secret torture prisons and charnel houses. Fear and loathing in militia hell. American military operations to "secure peaceful voting". All traffic circulation prohibited by the occupiers (to prevent car bombings). The borders with both Syria and Jordan, as well as Baghdad's airport, all closed.
Satanic, free and fair
We all knew what some were going to say. Saddam Hussein - preparing his next coup de theater in court - declared the elections "a farce". Al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers, plus four other jihadi groups, denounced them as "a satanic project", vowing to perpetuate the jihad, fighting for "an Islamic state ruled by the book [the Koran] and the traditions of Prophet Mohammed".
Other positions are more nuanced. On Monday, a leaflet was widely distributed in the Azamiyah neighborhood in Baghdad stating that Sunni Arabs might have a chance to reinforce their position through the elections, but "the fighting will continue with the infidels and their followers".
The Bush administration spin - faithfully reproduced by Western corporate media quoting the usual ("US officials") suspects - follows the same wishful script: a "large turnout" among the "disaffected Sunni Arab minority" that "could" produce a government "capable of winning the trust of the Sunnis", "defusing the insurgency" and thus leading the US "and other foreign troops" to start going home by 2006.
The favorite Anglo-American election candidate supposedly capable of pulling it all off is once again Allawi - a truculent secular Shi'ite who was once a Ba'athist (he has kept the good connections) before he became anti-Saddam and a US intelligence asset. The White House may forget it, but Iraqis don't; Allawi gave the go-ahead for the American leveling of Fallujah and the American bombing of holy Najaf in 2004.
A few days ago he was bombarded with shoes and chased away from the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf. British Prime Minister Tony Blair supports him and considers him "the best hope" for Iraq. Pentagon analysts agree, as one of them told The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh that "he would allow us to keep Special Forces operations inside Iraq ... mission accomplished. A coup for Bush." Read more
asiatimes: First, a quick look at the environment ahead of Thursday's elections in Iraq. Political assassinations, party headquarters burned, abductions (all largely unreported by Western corporate media). A former prime minister, Iyad Allawi - widely known in Baghdad as "Saddam without a moustache" - saying on the record that human rights in President George W Bush's Iraq are worse than they were under Saddam.
Current Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari's Da'wa Party accusing Allawi of defending the occupiers. Allawi accusing Jaafari's government of corruption. Former Pentagon asset Ahmad Chalabi's campaign posters with the inscription, "We liberated Iraq."
A network of secret torture prisons and charnel houses. Fear and loathing in militia hell. American military operations to "secure peaceful voting". All traffic circulation prohibited by the occupiers (to prevent car bombings). The borders with both Syria and Jordan, as well as Baghdad's airport, all closed.
Satanic, free and fair
We all knew what some were going to say. Saddam Hussein - preparing his next coup de theater in court - declared the elections "a farce". Al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers, plus four other jihadi groups, denounced them as "a satanic project", vowing to perpetuate the jihad, fighting for "an Islamic state ruled by the book [the Koran] and the traditions of Prophet Mohammed".
Other positions are more nuanced. On Monday, a leaflet was widely distributed in the Azamiyah neighborhood in Baghdad stating that Sunni Arabs might have a chance to reinforce their position through the elections, but "the fighting will continue with the infidels and their followers".
The Bush administration spin - faithfully reproduced by Western corporate media quoting the usual ("US officials") suspects - follows the same wishful script: a "large turnout" among the "disaffected Sunni Arab minority" that "could" produce a government "capable of winning the trust of the Sunnis", "defusing the insurgency" and thus leading the US "and other foreign troops" to start going home by 2006.
The favorite Anglo-American election candidate supposedly capable of pulling it all off is once again Allawi - a truculent secular Shi'ite who was once a Ba'athist (he has kept the good connections) before he became anti-Saddam and a US intelligence asset. The White House may forget it, but Iraqis don't; Allawi gave the go-ahead for the American leveling of Fallujah and the American bombing of holy Najaf in 2004.
A few days ago he was bombarded with shoes and chased away from the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf. British Prime Minister Tony Blair supports him and considers him "the best hope" for Iraq. Pentagon analysts agree, as one of them told The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh that "he would allow us to keep Special Forces operations inside Iraq ... mission accomplished. A coup for Bush." Read more
posted by exoplanet at 10:37 AM
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