Swami writes:
What I have or have not done or your opinion of me has NOTHING TO DO WITH SOURCES, now does it?
Ah. More examples of the Swami double standard. It's fine for you to refuse to ever provide sources, yet when I -- one of the most prolific suppliers of sources in this forum -- make the occasional statement without a source I am pounced on? Your statement about there being no discussion of issues is absurd on the face of it. There have been multiple stories about campaigners in Iraq, other stories tut-tutting over the "election poster wars" in which (horror of horrors!) posters of one candidate are torn down or papered over by supporters of another candidate, etc.
There are over seven thousand candidates organized into over eighty "blocs" (or parties, if you prefer) vying for the 275 seats on the general assembly, Swami. To pretend that the most information those blocks have disseminated to Iraqi voters is "Vote for us!" is not only disingenuous, it is an insult to Iraqis.
As for your double standard re the expression of opinions on the nature of the member making a post, I presume you don't consider your statement "Your usual balance is gone in this post." to be an expression of opinion on the poster? What about "I am losing faith in your reasoning prowess." Not expressing an opinion of the poster?
Your inept rhetorical ploys may serve you well in other forums. The bar is a tad higher in PA&L.
So the fact that we are imposing our western style of government is not a social political or cultural change?
What "imposing" are you talking about? Iraqis will vote for whichever party they feel most comfortable with. For some that will be a Sunni party. For some it will be a party wiht many women on their slate. For some it will be a secular party. For some it will be a Kurdish party. The members of those parties will then alter the existing provisional Iraq Constitution drawn up months ago by the provisional council, present it to Iraqis for ratification in a national referendum, and submit themselves for re-election (or rejection) in December.
Which part of this process do you consider "imposing" a Western style of government on them? Iraqis choose the council members. The council members -- themselves Iraqis -- write the Constitution. If those council members write the constitution in such a way as to declare that henceforth the top Imam in Iraqi will constitutionally declare the cleric of his choice to be President for Life and that the legal code of Iraq will be based on Shari'ah law from then on, then the Iraqi populace approves this constitution in their national referendum, from that day on Iraq will be ruled by a decidedly non-Western style of government.
What seems to have your knickers in a knot is the fact that for the first time in its history, free elections will be held in Iraq and that the future of the nation's government will be determined by Iraqi voters rather than by whichever thug manages to murder his way to the top of the food chain.
And by the way, take note of that last -- the first free elections in Iraq's history. Going all the way back to Mesopotamia. If this is not the most meaningful event in Iraq's political history, I eagerly await your own submittal of a political event more meaningful.
People will "choose" a Sunni or Shi'ite ticket or whatever) according to their faith and community ties. How does that pertain to issues?
By that criterion, all democratic elections are worthless, since vast numbers of voters in America vote not on issues, but on a perceived similarity to their representatives. Republicans tend to vote for Republican representatives. Black folks tend to vote for black representatives. Religious voters tend to vote for religious representatives. In Canada, Quebecers tend to vote for French-Canadian representatives. People from Texas tend to vote for presidential candidates from Texas. Okay, I will admit that in the case of Al Gore, the people from his home state couldn't bring themselves to vote for him, but hey... this is Al Gore we're talking about after all. The exception that proves the rule.
And of course, not you or anyone else that supports this farce...
Yet another unsupported judgment. Please indicate to us just what is "farcical" about the Iraqi election?
How is voting for a Sunni party if you yourself are a Sunni any more farcical than a New York woman voting for Hillary Clinton as senator? How do you propose Iraqi Sunnis should be prevented from voting for an Iraqi Sunni as their representative? How do you suggest a vote being counted can be determined to have been cast by an Iraqi who voted on issues rather than the fact that the party he chose has a candidate who is his mother's cousin?
In other words, Swami, what mechanism do you favor which would change this election from a "farce" into a legitimate expression of the will of the Iraqi populace?
...will wager that anyone other than Allawi will be the head puppet;
Another unsupported judgment. Please indicate to us the rationale for characterizing Allawi a "puppet".
I realize you seldom venture into PA&L, so it will doubtless surprise you that prior to the selection by the Iraqi provisional council of Allawi as interim head of state, the conventional wisdom was that Chalabi was a shoo-in. There was no denying Chalabi was the favorite of the Bush administration. And at that time Allawi had been making some pretty critical statements against some of the moves taken by the coalition forces in Iraq. He was most certainly not anyone's idea of a hand-picked American puppet. But Chalabi lost and Allawi won. "Uh-oh," the proponents of the puppetry model of government said. "How do we explain this startling turn of events?"
Through the usual Leftist tactic, of course. Within weeks of the Council's choice, the Lefties had forgotten all about their opposition to Chalabi and their confident predictions of his certain rise to power through US puppetry, and had determined that in fact all along it was really Allawi who was a puppet "installed" by the US. Even if some woman no one outside Iraq had ever heard of had been chosen by the council, she would also have been denounced as a "puppet". The very fact that no one had ever heard of her would suffice as "proof positive" to the tinfoil beanie brigade that she was a CIA plant or something similar.
For what it's worth, I personally believe the newly-elected members of the national assembly will most likely choose Allawi. But my sternum won't be bruised by the point of my jaw crashing into it if someone other than Allawi is chosen. Despite your baseless accusations to the contrary, it is up to the Iraqis. And I don't know enough about the current political tide in Iraq to care making a wager on the outcome. What I do know is that whoever is chosen to head the government for the next year will not be a cleric. All the Iraqi political parties -- Sunni, Kurd, Shi'ite and secular -- have agreed that now is not the time to run an overtly theocratic candidate for the office of representative to the national assembly. This is probably due to the fact that in the municipal and regional elections held to date, not a single theocratic candidate has won.
Phred
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