Democratic Iraq

Iraq is going to vote for a new president. What is this going to do?
Is it going to change anything in the way this country works?
You would think that once they create a "democratic" country, that we would be finished there. But President Bush just asked for $80B to fund the war. Any other opinions?

 

It will change everything. Unfortunately, it won't mean we get to withdraw as Iraq still cannot handle its own security, although we may give Iraqi security complete control over the majority of the country which is relatively peaceful.

The elections are looking like a success already. Participation is a vote for the legitimacy of the process as well as a vote for a particular candidate. So from the looks of things, the enthusiasm for voting, despite incredible obstacles, is a cause for celebration.

There are some here that think the legitimacy of Iraqi elections will be decided by the US and European left. It won't. The only thing we can guarantee about the elections is that a lot of Iraqis will give their lives making it happen, and the left will instantly and automatically condemn the results, just as they did in Afghanistan.

 

Nothing will change since Iraq won't be democratic. The US has already made the Iraq goverment its bitch by stealing property (in breach of the Hague Regulations) and IMF regulations that will force Iraqi to indefinite poverty

This is why the bussniess community of Iraq is funding the insurgence, a US victory means having their property stolen by the international corperate community. Even Iraqi unions have talked about burning down their factories to keep them out of US hands. Oh and in Iraq there is a non-violent movement that though small is slowly growing, 4 Iraqis were able to to keep employees working for Windrush (That helps sells off Iraqi assets,properties and resources all against international law) traped in a office space where the protests read them their crimes aginst the Hague Regulations and Geneva Convention for 3 hours before Iraqi police draged them away.

No the US has already lost the Iraq war yet like Vietnam they don't want to admit it right away. The Iraqis won't stop fighting the US till the US stops its illegal occupation and theift of Iraqi property while the US won't leave till the Iraqis accept being their bitch.

 

Please name one piece of property the US has stolen.

This doesn't remotely make sense. What you are referring to is privatizations which are illegal under international law. If something is being privatized, it is owned by the state, not the "bussniess community of Iraq".

If IMF advice and privatization brought permanent poverty, then the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary would be in ruins seeing as they privatised virtually every single industry in their countries and adopted standard neo-liberal economic policies over the past 15 years. Instead they are the fastest growing economies in Europe.

The occupation is with the consent of the interim govenment, whose authority is recognised by the UN. Thus the occupation is not illegal.

Iraqis are demonstrating what they think - they are risking their lives to vote. If that makes you unhappy, too bad.

 

The reason the bussniess community is siding with the unions and insergence is for example when the US stole Iraq power generation then refused to sell power to Iraqi bussniess owners or sell at inflated rates when the bussniess community complained about this racism aginst Iraqis to the interm goverment they were told "the weak will not survive" thus the bussniess community sided with the insergence. So the bussniess communities problems are linked to the USs looting of Iraqi property.

The insergence that is mostly laid off Iraqi troops are mad because the interm goverment took away their pention.

Unions are mad about unemployment over 60% while the interm goverment steal Iraqi firms to sell to US companies so they can lay them off and cut their wages. This is why Iraqi unions kill managers in order to keep these firms in Iraqi hands so while on paper US companies may own them the union really does.

They are aginst the Geneva Convention and the Hague Regulations thus the IMF is in breach of international law. Plus the if the US ruling class will get the profits from all of Iraq assets how the FUCK can they pay it off?

This is not just priviatization this is handing ALL of the Iraqi economy to US companies meaning wealth will flow into the USA ruling class and away from Iraq that really needs it.

It doesn't matter if the UN recognises the interim goverment since the Geneva Convention and Hague Regulations are clear that not even the interim goverment owns Iraqi property thus privatiazation is classed as theift of property till Iraq has a independant goverment.

 

Please name one piece of property the US has stolen. Because otherwise everything you just wrote is fantasy.

 

The 200 Iraqi firms the US goverment has already sold off. Windrush Communications whole purpose is to help sell of Iraqi property that according to the Geneva Convention and Hague Regulations is NOT property of the occuping force or the Iraqi intern goverment instead property of the IRAQI PEOPLE that must NOT be sold or given away till a perminate goverment is established.

Why? Think about it. Lets say the ELECTED Iraqi govement says that only Iraqi citizens can own Iraqi firms, opps the US already sold them to US firms. This is why what the US is doing is classed as THEIFT by international law.

 

Wish for the best, be prepared for the worse.

 

From what I've heard the elections that are going to be held on sunday aren't to ellect a president. Just a congress that will draft a constitution in the next year or so. Then there will be more elections next year to determine the real representative government. So these elections are pretty much to elect another interim gov.

As for the legitimacy of the results? Of course there are Iraqis drooling over the chance to freely elect who they want. BUT.... The biggest problem is that the voter turnout will likely not be representational to the Iraq population. The Majority of the Sunni muslim population is not expected to vote. That's because they all live in the area that's under the control of the insurgency (coincediently called the Sunni Triangle).

It's feared that the elections will be viewed as Invalid or Illegimate by the rest of the muslim world. Since the Shiite Muslim population will have a disproportionately large representation in the New Gov. This might all cause a civil war within Iraq between the shiites and sunni's. Shiites dont take warmly to sunni's in the first place since they were the ones in power during Sadam's days.

What I expect is many more iraqi civilian to die near election day, and The U.S. pulling troops out prior to "real" security being established.

Then the Bush adm's claim to fame can be spending $400 billion, murdering 25,000+ people, and bailing on a country that's in worse shape than when it was run by a dictator.

 

One man, one vote, ONE TIME.

The most likely scenario, in my opinion, is an election marred with violence in which majority Shiites elect candidates that are lukewarm at best to American involvement in the Middle East. Looking five years ahead, I predict either the dissolution of Iraq as a single nation or a Shiite theocracy.

The best case scenario would be a system similar to Turkey's, and even that is very unlikely in my opinion. The Bush Administration is living in a dream world if they think that Iraq is going to become a liberal democracy any time in the forseeable future.

 

Iraq will never be a Democratic nation, or free from American control. That's why we are in the process of building 13 bases there. The US will remain in Iraq from this point forward.

There is no real election for the Iraqis, just the US-installed puppet that will be placed into power, that will kow-tow to whatever the administration wants.

Everyone else that has dared to run has wound up dead.

This whole idea of Iraqi elections is an utter joke. Most of the country will not be voting for fear of their lives, which suits the coalition agenda even more. The Iraqis aren't even going to be told where to vote until hours prior to the elections.

It's all a big lie. The Iraqis have no say in any of this, whatsoever.

 

While that is the plan, odds are in a couple of years the US will run with their tail betwen their legs like in Vietnam. The insergence already have effectively cut off land routes forcing the US to airlift most of its supplies and equipment.

 

Ya. Don't think we'll be leaving anytime soon.

 

200? Wow! That's a lot. Then surely you can NAME ONE. Go on, name it.

 

What is with your fascination of the insignifigant? On September 19 2003, Bremer enacted the now infamous Order 39. It announced that 200 Iraqi state companies would be privatised; decreed that foreign firms can retain 100% ownership of Iraqi banks, mines and factories; and allowed these firms to move 100% of their profits out of Iraq. The Economist declared the new rules a "capitalist dream". So the interm goverment enactes a order the breaches the Hague regulations, Geneva Convention AND US army's Law of Land Warfare states that "the occupant does not have the right of sale or unqualified use of non-military property" oh and here is a section of the Corperate Watch

So do we really need to care about the NAMES when it is already established it is happening?

Oh and also the interm goverment is making it illegal for Iraqi farmers to saves seeds when 97% of Iraqi farmers do it which too is illegal to do to a occupied nation under international law.

 

the website timed out,
At a time like this dont ever trust anything .uk.
*Ahem* guardian

 

Democracy?!?


This isn't Pleasantville!
This is the Hatfields vs. the McCoys!
This is the Middle East;
where you, like your great-grandfathers and great-grandsons are, have, and will be born, in a clan or tribe whose survival depends on your total loyalty.

Here, you do not become; you are born, and remain forever, a Kurd, or a Sunni, or a Shiite.
You do not become a Democrat one day and a Republican the next.

Here, Democracy is only an artificial weapon; where the clan or tribe, who can muster the most blood-members, can then take over the institutional powers of the State, and dominate their enemies all the more completely.

Of course the Shiite look forward to the elections.
Just like the McCoys would look forward to having Tanks to intimidate the Hatfields.

But here, every Group believes in their right to self defence, and they will not allow their enemies to gain an unfair advantage using Democracy as a weapon.

Pollyannish concepts of Democracy may fit our naive and sanitized Anglo-Saxon Pleasantville mindset, but not the real flesh and blood world of eternal feuds here in the Middle East.

 

Right... because after all, we know the American press is never biased.

 

I only trust the antarctic press

 

Psy Fox, the reason you can't name a SINGLE COMPANY that has been privatized is because there are no companies that have been privatized. There was a lot of hysteria that this would happen but it never did. Until you can name one, you haven't proved anything. So go on, NAME ONE.

Also, seed saving is not illegal in Iraq, this is another scaremongering campaign.

All of this is a mere diversion. Iraqis are are putting their lives on the line to vote. THEY believe in the legitimacy of the elections, and THEY are the ones that matter, not the Socialist Worker, not Justin Raimondo, not ANSWER. The Iraqi people decide.