Thousands March in Iraq to Demand Early Elections

[Khephra]

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through Basra Thursday in support of a call by Iraq's most revered Shi'ite cleric for direct elections to be held within months to select a sovereign Iraqi government.

Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has objected to U.S. plans for a transitional Iraqi assembly to be selected by regional caucuses rather than an election. The assembly will select an interim government that is due to take over sovereignty by end-June.

The demonstration in mainly Shi'ite Basra was the latest sign that many of Iraq's majority Shi'ite Muslims are backing Sistani's call, complicating Washington's efforts to win widespread support for its plans for the handover of power.

snip........

A senior Basra cleric, Ali al-Hakim al-Safi, told the crowd at the mosque that Shi'ites would seek their goals by peaceful means -- for now.

more.........

http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=40DNJ14SX1I1WCRBAEOCFFA?type=topNews&storyID=4131734

[saltpoint]

1. The Neocons --

-- claim that they want to "bring democracy" to the Middle East, which I think means they want to install "cooperative" governments who will allow mostly U.S. corporations to control the flow of oil and its profits.

If Iraqis march in the streets demanding democracy but then elect an Islamic government, things could get turbulent for the Bush re-election campaign in a hurry: no wpms, no al-Qaeda link. no democratic government. Three strikes and you're out.

Tempers are short over there, seems like. Dubya could lose on this issue if things don't improve.

[leftchick]

2. Link is not working, Here is another ......

Good Morning Kheph! :hi: Your link did not work so here is another...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&ncid=578&e=3&u=/nm/20040115/ts_nm/iraq_dc

A Photo from Al Jazeera....







.... This is BAD news for our soldiers and was so predictable before the Invasion. Bring them home NOW!!

[leftchick]

3. These Protesters Know About The Florida Selection of 2000!!!

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/38504C54-8377-4121-A506-3AF5ADC8FB59.htm

<"Yes, yes to Sistani; no, no to selection," shouted the demonstrators on Thursday as they headed towards the city's Al-Abilla's mosque.>

[Laughing Mirror]

4. Who could have planted the bomb at the demonstration?

That British soldiers had to isolate and defuse?

[leftchick]

5. CIA?

wouldn't be the first time....

[0007]

6. khephra - link took me to a blank page

[Jack Rabbit]

7. BBC Link

From the BBC Online
Dated Thursday January 15 13:43 GMT (5:43 am PST)

Iraqis protest against poll plans

Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been demonstrating in the southern city of Basra for direct elections to form a new government to run the country.
The peaceful protest outside a mosque was organised by local clerics.
The top Shia cleric Ayatollah Sistani has called for the new administration to be elected not selected.
Correspondents say the Shia objections are complicating US plans to hand over power to an appointed government by the middle of this year.
Demonstrators waving banners poured into the area around Basra's main mosque and chanted "No, no to America, yes, yes to (Grand Ayatollah Ali) Sistani."

Iraqis appear to know the difference between liberation and colonial occupation.

[NNN0LHI]

8. This is trouble I think. Can't see Junior getting out of this one

These people appear to want to be lead by an Ayatollah Of Iraq and that is what they will have. I don't think the Iraqis care what Rumsfeld says?

Don

[DUreader]

9. Hmm... "Thousands" in the headline becomes "Tens of Thousands"...

in the first sentence.

Considering the way they report protests I would assume it was

between two hundred thousand and half a milliond

[leftchick]

10. It looked HUGE!

I caught some video of it this Morning on BBC America. These people are not going to settle for what America wants....

[TheDalaiMama]

11. Nightline has been reporting from Iraq all week and it's been good.

Last night Bremer was asked questions about being so secluded from the general population that he didn't know what was happening...Bremer went on to say they have systems in place of local
layers of civic groups to go to for a problem. Trouble is..the citizens do that..and nothing gets done...they can't get in to see the Council because they are all under guard.

It's a nightmare and getting worse...not better.

[NashVegas]

12. Kicking

..

[Say_What]

13. Why is the U.S. Refusing Iraqi Demands For Immediate Direct Elections

Sorry for the dupe. Didn't know this thread was running. :spank:

Interesting transcript from yesterday's Democracy Now interview with Mid East expert Juan Cole.

<clips>

AMY GOODMAN: A short time ago, I spoke with professor Juan Cole. He's the professor of modern Middle East and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. He runs a analytical website called Informed Comment in which he provides a daily roundup of news and events in Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world. The address is Juancole.com. Cole speaks fluent Arabic, Persian and Urdu and he has also lived all over the Muslim world. He continues to research Iran and Shiite Islam, the subject of his Sacred Space and Holy War. The book collects some of the work on the history of Shiite Islam in Iraq in the modern Gulf. I asked him to talk about Paul Bremer's comments.

JUAN COLE: The problem from the point of view of the Iraqis who want free and open elections is that the elections that are now in visage by Mr. Bremer have a very narrow base. They will be conducted by municipal or provincial councils which were appointed by - on the whole by the Americans or the British. It is those handpicked members of provincial councils who will choose the majority of the delegates to the electoral college, which in turn will choose a parliament. The American appointed interim governing council, which oversees all of Iraq will also be able to appoint a certain number of persons to the most basic level of the electorate. This is not a democratic election at all. This is an election based upon the traces of a fairly small number of handpicked delegates installed by the U.S. and Great Britain.

AMY GOODMAN: The Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has rejected the plan for a transitional national assembly chosen by a caucus of delegates to assume power on June 30th. You have the Shiites calling for majority rule and although Bremer says he supports it, it doesn't look that way?

JUAN COLE: Yes. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has insisted that these elections, which are scheduled for the end of May, be held on a one-person, one-vote basis throughout the country. He wants this, he says because only such elections could guarantee that the will of the sovereign Iraqi people was represented in the government that emerged. So, he is talking very much like Jean Jacques Rousseau. He is talking about sovereignty residing in the body politic. He thinks that an election based upon these appointed provincial councils simply would not be democratic; it would not have democratic results. I think he's also afraid that the U.S. and the United Kingdom when they appointed these members of provincial councils, often favored ex-bosses who had cooperated at some point with them in overthrowing Saddam and who tended to be semi Arabs. I think Sistani is afraid that these councils will produce a government that's not only not legitimate but also not representative.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/14/1553231#transcript

Juan Cole's website: http://www.juancole.com/


U.S. Army troops watch a demonstration by the Coalition of Iraqi National Unity in Baghdad, January 15, 2004. Tens of thousands of demonstrators shouting 'No to America' marched through Basra on supporting a call by Iraq (news - web sites)'s most revered Shi'ite cleric for direct elections to form a sovereign Iraqi government. (Akram Saleh/Reuters)

[cthrumatrix]

14. so I see...one dictator for a new US picked ruler --- will the US report

this activity to the US people?