An election to anoint an occupation

[struggle4progress]

Had it been held in Zimbabwe, the west would have denounced it

Salim Lone
Monday January 31, 2005
The Guardian

Tony Blair and George Bush were quick to characterise yesterday's election as a triumph of democracy over terror. Bush declared it a "resounding success", while Blair asserted that "The force of freedom was felt throughout Iraq". And yet the election fell so completely short of accepted electoral standards that had it been held in, say, Zimbabwe or Syria, Britain and America would have been the first to denounce it.

Draconian security measures left Iraq's cities looking like ghost towns. The ballot papers were so complicated that even Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish leader, needed a briefing on how to use one. Most candidates had been afraid to be seen in public, or to link their names to their faces in the media. The United Iraqi Alliance, identifying only 37 of their 225 candidates, explained: "We offer apologies for not mentioning the names of all the candidates ... We have to keep them alive."

The millions of Iraqis, as well as the UN electoral team and the Iraqi election commission staff, who did participate in the process despite the grave risk, deserve our respect. But it was a risk taken in vain. The election was illegitimate, and cannot resolve the rampant insecurity resulting from the occupation. <snip>

Early in the occupation, the Bush administration recognised that a democratic Iraq would not countenance the strategic goals the war was fought for: controlling the oil reserves and establishing military bases to enable the political transformation the neocons envisage for the Middle East. Even as the US proclaimed its mission as introducing democracy to Iraq, they worked to make sure that the processes they put in place would produce leaders they had picked. The US obtained a carefully circumscribed UN involvement in order to provide the chosen leaders a measure of legitimacy. <snip>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1402181,00.html

[aquart]

1. Go, Guardian!

[The Doctor.]

2. Since I don't want to put this in the Subject line...

"Picture 20 foot high flaming letters artfully arranged on the horizon to spell out the words, "NO SHIT", and you will have some Idea of how truly surprised we all are that this election was an installation rather than an Iraqi exercise in democracy.

[struggle4progress]

3. It wouldn't have bothered me if you put it in the subject line