Hi Everyone,
There has been a lot of talk lately about Iraqi elections and Afghan elections. There are some interesting comments from people in power and some interesting implications for the future.
Rumsfeld put his foot in it again by suggesting that the Bush administration would be satisfied if elections were carried out in 60%-80% of Iraq. Of course the 20%-40% that would NOT have elections would be the areas of the Sunni Triangle under insurgent control. Rumsfeld's "Some elections is better than no elections" assertion is utter nonsense. Its typical of the Rumsfeld style that he delivered this patently absurd line in a condescending tone that said, "if you don't agree with me you must be some kind of idiot." Here is why Rumsfeld is wrong about some elections being better than no elections: The elections we're talking about are for the body that will write the Iraqi constitution. If the Sunnis aren't represented the Iraqi constitution won't include their concerns. The danger is that the Kurds and the Shiites will write a constitution that Sunnis would never had agreed to. Some elections conducted early could be a total disaster for the legitimacy of the new constitution. It would have been FAR better if there were sufficient troops in Iraq to establish something resembling order nationwide and then hold full elections. But Rumsfeld wanted a low number of troops to prove his theories about modern military operations. So once again this all comes back to the flawed and incomplete plan they had for the occupation.
In Afghanistan there are reports from Human Rights Watch that corrupt registration processes are going on unchecked by the Afghan government or the American observers. Between that and the continued de facto independence of regional war lords and you have a recipe for electoral farce in Afghanistan as well.
Oh, by the way, oil has hit $50/barrel. But the Bush administration has flip flopped and is now going to release part of the Strategic Oil Reserve to counter act the increase in prices.
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Elections In Iraq and Afghanistan
Posted by Raised By Republicans at 8:36 AM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
But Bush only changed his position on account of the hurricanes in Florida. Surely nobody suspects political motivation in that.
See, God sent the Hurricanes to tell Bush to open up the oil reserves. So really, those Hurricanes were like a kind of Divine Memo and only Bush has the secret decoder ring that tells him what God wanted.
Post a Comment