BBC: Fate of Iraqi charter in balance

[Michael_UK]

Fate of Iraqi charter in balance

Two provinces in Iraq have rejected the Iraqi draft constitution, Iraqi electoral officials have reported.

...

This means the fate of the current document depends on the result in the Sunni province of Nineveh, which is expected on Tuesday or Wednesday.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4372094.stm

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Nineveh has quite a lot of Kurds in as well as Sunni Arabs

and there seems to have been a lot of controversy about the accuracy of the vote there (hence the delay in a result, I suppose).

[LynnTheDem]

3. What the M$M isn't saying; a lot of KURDS do not like that "constitution".

A majority of Kurds do not want Sharia law (of course not) and are very unhappy about the new "constitution", which says no laws can be made that violate Sharia law and declares Iraq an Islamic state.

It ain't just Sunnis voting HELL NO.

But either way, pass or not, doesn't matter. The 60% Shia majority are ruled by Islamic fundamentalist clergy. If the US were to intervene and say no Sharia, the Shia would be called out in force in fatwa and simply overrun the US troops in Iraq.

Pass or not, Iraq will be an Islamic state, with closerthanthis ties to Iran. Another thing the m$m doesn't like to say is the fact that the top religious leader in Iraq, al Sistani, is not Iraqi. He is Iranian.

What a total absolute complete utter FUBAR.

[rfkrfk]

5. Kurds would bolt

if Shia attempt to impose Islamic law

besides that, Shia would want to have
Kurdish help to cut the Sunnis out
of Shia-Kurd oil.

[LynnTheDem]

7. Sharia law is a fact under the new "constitution".

Read article #2 of the "constitution; it's there in plain language.

BUT, the Kurds at this point don't care because they plan to remain autonomous and are busy ethnic-cleansing the Mosul-Tikrit areas of Iraq.

[rfkrfk]

10. Sharia does not appear, in the translation I have

Islam is the official religion if the state,
no law that contradicts...
OK

Nowhere, are Sharia courts called into existence,
look at, article 2, C, second

besides that, do you think that the Kurds
are going to let the Sunnis tell them what to do?

[LynnTheDem]

12. You meant "Kurds (won't) let SHIA tell them what to do" don't you?

And no, as I said, the Kurds are willing to accept Sharia law because they will just ignore it anyways.


Iraq constitution;

Article 2:

First: Islam is the official religion of the State and it is a fundamental source of legislation:

A. No law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established.

Sharia law is encompassed in the religion of Islam.

The top religious leader in Iraq is Iranian Shia al Sistani. Here is what Sistani's spokesman recently said in an interview February 2005;

La Repubblica: "Putting it in a nutshell, there will be no more stoning of adulterous women, is that it?"

Al-Yasari: "Well, it depends. In the case of married women whom eye witnesses can accuse of betraying their husbands, the punishment can only be that. But in any event there will be very few exemplary sentences, and they will always be issued after a fair trial."

But hopefully they'll do in Iraq what they do now in Afghanistan; only SMALL stones can be used. :eyes:

[rfkrfk]

13. 'established provisions', means the Five Pillars, or something else? nt

[LynnTheDem]

14. The Arabic word for "Islamic law" is "Sharia"; the 5 Pillars are part of

Sharia.

Interpretation will be the key; while al Sistani is not a radical extremist like al Sadr, he certainly isn't secular, and hearing his own spokesman say Iraq will stone adulterous women just doesn't sound like a good thing for 2000 US troops to (so far) have died for.

But Americans on the whole don't mind the stoning thing, I presume, because it's still the law in Afghanistan and no one's saying dick about it.

[CJCRANE]

8. More likely the delay is to try and put a "fix" in...nt

[yellowcanine]

2. Ninevah? If that dang whale had not coughed up Jonah we wouldn't

have to worry about Ninevah - God would have destroyed it.

[IndianaGreen]

4. For our sakes, let's hope this thing gets rejected

This constitution will result in civil war. Outside of the deluded neocons in the US, it is the consensus among many others that the best thing that could happen is for this charter to be rejected. This will bring the current government down and will begin a new process of elections to elect another constitutional assembly which, hopefully, will include the Sunnis.

I fear that the same people that gave us the Ohio fiasco in 2004 were busy trying to do the same in Iraq:

In the immediate aftermath of the referendum, election officials in the provincial capital, Mosul, were quoted by an international news agency as saying the "Yes" vote had won by a huge majority.

Most impartial observers were perplexed and perturbed, the BBC's Richard Galpin reports, as the word on the street seemed to be that the majority had in fact voted "No".

But it was not clear, our correspondent adds, if the "No" voters mustered two-thirds.

Nineveh is one of the provinces under investigation by election officials. They are looking at voting procedures, the ballot boxes and the ballot papers to ensure there were no mistakes or fraud.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4372094.stm

31 August 2005
''The Implications of Iraq's Proposed Constitution''

The failure to win the Sunni committee members' support weakens the prospects for bringing stability to Iraq in the near term, potentially laying the groundwork for civil war. The constitution's embrace of federalism seems to destroy any illusions of a strong, centralized government emerging in Baghdad, and, if approved on October 15, could lead to the further fracturing of Iraq along sectarian lines and could strengthen the insurgency due to widespread Sunni Arab rejection.

http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_report&report_id=357

[liberal N proud]

6. Ah but least we forget, the bu$h regime is involved

I am sure that in the last minutes, those two provinces will flip/flop and the vote will actually show it passing.
Similar to the Ohio race in 2004!

[confludemocrat]

9. Their first talking point was passage is "likely", kinda like FL 2000,

creating and repeating an illusory certainty and further claiming throughout the waiting period was that there was no fraud and that only one province had clearly rejected the "constitution". This "close" result is only going to create more chaos, count on it.

[babylonsister]

11. Fate of Iraqi Charter In Balance

More bad news?


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4372094.stm

Two Sunni-dominated provinces in Iraq have rejected the country's draft constitution, according to partial results given by election officials.

Electoral rules mean the document will fail if three out of the 18 provinces vote "No" by two-thirds or more.

Salahuddin and Anbar both heavily voted against but Diyala, also Sunni, has backed the charter.

Now all eyes are on the largely Sunni province of Nineveh where the result is due to be announced within two days.

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