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December 15, 2005 @ 10:22 pm | Comment

Woman: Hey, let’s show Richard what Democracy in Iraq looks like.

Bush: Put that thing away before he has a heart attack.

December 15, 2005 @ 10:53 pm | Comment

And how many voters were there in Falluja again?

December 15, 2005 @ 10:55 pm | Comment

This post is written from the American interests, and wants to claim that it is irrelevant how many Iraqi’s have voted, and who they voted for.

This is because the power of the media is in the hands of Americans and allies.

Therefore, even if the voting turnout was only 1%, the US can very easily declare that it was 90%. It could easily shoot some footages of Iraqi’s enthusiastically lining up to vote, and some footages of workers organizing the votes, and some footages of people casting their ballots with smiles, etc etc.

Then, the US can decide which candidate gets how many votes, and can make the distribution of votes for each candidate very realistic, so the US-backed candidate won’t get 90% of the votes like Saddam did. A good distribution is 52% versus 35% for second place, and maybe 10% for third place, etc etc. And wala, the Iraqis suddenly have democracy now.

Of course, many people will say I’m crazy, because in their hearts, America will never deceive, and will always have the best credibility.

But in my view, even elections in older and more mature democracies like Taiwan or Ukraine have frequent scandals of election fraud. Iraq has never had such elections before, people never experienced them before, it has never been organized before, it is unbelievable to think that there won’t be fraud. If you think there won’t be fraud, are you not too naive, too simple?

Even if let’s say the US stays neutral, other parties will try to create fraud and I do not believe there is enough enforcement and organization to prevent fraud.

But that is not something to worry about. The so-called elections is really an ancient ritual. If people really mean to have effective and truthful elections instead of a political show, then why not have elections in which every voter’s name and his/her vote is recorded, and let people look at the entire record and see who voted for whom, so they can check whether the results at the end is untampered. (If everyone checks to make sure his/her vote is correctly recorded, then that will make fraud impossible).

But right now, we have opaque ballot boxes (or electronic ballot boxes). Who knows what goes on inside those boxes? Is that not an invitation for fraud? Can voters supervise the counting of the ballots? Clearly, such a method of “hidden-black-box” election is very backward and unreliable.

Finally, those who manages the counting of the votes will, in effect, have ultimate power over who wins. According to some people’s formulas, absolute power corrupts absolutely. According to this formula, wouldn’t the Iraqi Election Board, which is ultimately pro-US, have absolute power, which means the US have absolute power over the election’s winner, and doesn’t that lead to absolute corruption? If you say no, then isn’t your formula of “absolute power corrupts absolutely” is wrong?

Sigh, some Rightists and people here always have such logical flaws in their words, so sad….

December 15, 2005 @ 11:24 pm | Comment

Gordon, democracy is great. I am all for it. Whether this was a cause worth dying for remains to be seen. So far there is no evidence that it is. In any case, since when are you in favor of sacrificing American lives to give people on other continents the right to vote (especicaly when most of those people would like to do America harm)? If you are in favor of using American lives and tax dollars for such purposes, when are we going in to China?

This is yet another of those “landmark” iraqi events that were hyped as signifying the great turning point. A few weeks later, every single turning point turned out to be a prelude to new carnage and death, and more of the same. This, too, will soon be revealed to be a failure, I suspect. Meanwhile, it’s great for pumping up people’s emotions and making us believe we really succeeded. Americans love self-delusion, the way we loved hearing of the heroism of Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch.

December 15, 2005 @ 11:37 pm | Comment

People from China are basically conditioned to believe that democracies are always a sham.

“It’s all controlled by the rich people. And if it’s not, then its’ all controlled by the vote counters. You can’t trust the counters anyways. It’s better to just have one party like the CCP. We’ll take good care of you.”

Even Al-Jazeera said there was extremely high voter turnout. Weird how Xinhua covers the election in even worse light than Al-Jazeera. The communists are just afraid of losing control. They set back China 50 years and now people seem amazed at the economic boom – happened in Taiwan 50 years ago.

December 16, 2005 @ 12:07 am | Comment

Well, it’s too soon to say what the outcome of this election will be – I do tend to believe the reports of a high voter turn-out, though.

I don’t want to see Iraqis suffer any more than they already have. I hope things improve there, and quickly.

My guess is that there will continue to be a relatively open, fairly functional defacto “Kurdistan” in the north, a Shi’ite theocracy increasingly allied with Iran in the south, and an impoverished, resentful Sunni band in the middle.

Whatever does end up happening, I still won’t support the proposition that a US invasion was in any way necessary or beneficial to our national security. I don’t believe it was worth the lives of our soldiers, and the lives of 30,000 plus Iraqi civilians.

(yes, I know. Saddam was bad. We can have that discussion some other time).

And every time I read about the lagging reconstruction in the Gulf Coast, I think about what we could be doing with the billions and billions of dollars spent on the war.

December 16, 2005 @ 12:11 am | Comment

Oh, and as a p.s…if the Bush administration had been honest about their reasons for invading Iraq…if they’d properly planned for the occupation…if, if, if…

Well, we’d be having a different discussion here. But I would bet that the large majority of the American people would not have supported the war on those grounds. And I think the idea that America should be in the business of invading other countries that aren’t threatening us to force regime change is an example of imperial hubris at its worst. Things like that don’t tend to work very well. Hubris, you know…

December 16, 2005 @ 12:16 am | Comment

Caption:

Bush: That’s nothing. Once, at Yale, a guy stuck one this thick up there.

On the election:

I’ll put my comment in the other thread.

December 16, 2005 @ 2:32 am | Comment

Something about that gesture of holding up a purple finger, just trivialises and degrades “democracy” into a Kindergarten game.

It’s a very puerile symbol. ALSO (and I hate to say this, because the girl in that photo is really hot), she is NOT a typical “Iraqi” woman. Healthy and well dressed? Uh-uh.

Disgusting, puerile propaganda.

Although, still, if she’s single, I’d love to get her phone number….(I have a thing for Arab women, the wealthy young ones anyway….)

December 16, 2005 @ 2:47 am | Comment

But wealthy *and* puerile ones, Ivan? That’s just kinky.

December 16, 2005 @ 3:09 am | Comment

Arab chicks are hot, but unfortunately far too often hirsute.

December 16, 2005 @ 3:35 am | Comment

“Hey Karl, she voted for the “Troops Out Alliance”, what line should I take?”

December 16, 2005 @ 3:37 am | Comment

Will:

“Wealthy AND puerile ones?”

…well, my neocortex and limbic system don’t always agree…

December 16, 2005 @ 4:30 am | Comment

Actually I’d say the same thing about some types of Jewish girls, the darker ones (cf Cyd Charisse). And who cares about hirsute? That’s what razors are for.

December 16, 2005 @ 4:33 am | Comment

Ivan:

Having dated a lovely lady would could be classified as being hirsute, that razor is only as good if it is used often.

I almost panicked one evening when I came over to visit her, and she had a hairer upper lip than myself. Granted, she had been really sick for 2-3 days and wouldn’t taken visitors outside of the BR. However, it was then and there that I marveled at the magic that women can perform behind closed doors…

December 16, 2005 @ 8:14 am | Comment

::coughs:: *outside of the BF.

December 16, 2005 @ 8:15 am | Comment

Yagij,

Oh my good man, ALL beautiful women do magic behind closed doors.

That’s why I say, if you REALLY ADORE women, as I do, you should never get married. And Katherine Hepburn (one of my heroines) agreed with me: She said: “Men and women shouldn’t get married; they should just visit each other once in a while.”

Give me a hirsute dark haired Jewish Goddess like Cyd Charisse any day, as long as she uses a razor.

(And alright, yes I dated an Israeli Sabra – one of those Sephardic, very dark types – for a while, and yes I admit that the charm wore off whenever she didn’t wax. Oh, but WOW, the things she learned in the Israeli Army! …… 🙂 🙂

December 16, 2005 @ 8:39 am | Comment

Bush: My Santa baby, take a look at the back of my hand, bloodier than yours! shush….

December 16, 2005 @ 1:00 pm | Comment

“Looks good..keep bycycling ,eat more broccoli and don’t let Rove get all up in there again. He did some damage.”

December 16, 2005 @ 5:00 pm | Comment

And Clinton thought the cigar thing was cool…

December 19, 2005 @ 4:38 am | Comment

Bush: heh great idea lets use blood this time.. wait is that soildier or civilian blood?

December 22, 2005 @ 4:14 am | Comment