"No joke, it's a democracy."
If you had to be patted down and walk through three layers of razor wire in order to get to the polling place and then worry about mortar shells or car bombers striking you while you voted, would you consider it to be a free and fair election? I don't think so.
This week, according the the NY Times, President Bush went on record as saying that if the duly elected government of Iraq asks that US forces leave, we will do so. That sounds like an invitation to me. It would be a graceful exit from a quagmire for this administration. They can't help but recognize the blunder of the Iraq adventure.
Besides, we have accomplished our mission. We have secured the Iraqi oil fields for the benefit of our corporate buddies. Now we can proceed to the colonial phase. How do we do this? We set up a puppet government, then we declare elections. Elections held under the barrel of a gun are not free, no matter how much Bushco wants to declare victory, there is no democracy in Iraq. Not yet.
What we are seeing is classic colonialism. When the British invaded India they did exactly the same thing we are attempting to do in Iraq. They trained a police force/army of natives commanded by British officers. This puts a native face on the occupation. It also makes it possible to secure the resources of the colony without having to expend so much manpower.
The Bush administration is obviously traveling the path of colonialism. It would be very convenient for them to be asked to leave by a 'duly elected Iraqi government'. It would give them an excuse to cut their losses in Iraq and free up the manpower to pursue other adventures.
What we have seen in Iraq this week is truly heartening. The pictures of purple fingers pointed defiantly to the sky were a joy to observe. Humans will generally strive for freedom and independence. President Bush is correct in this assertion. What the neo-cons fail to recognize is that holding a ceremonial election is not a novel thing to the Iraqis. Saddam held elections and got 99% of the vote. I say let's wait a year or two before we declare democracy in Iraq.
George Bush's almost maniacal inaugural address asserting that America was going to liberate the world made me wonder if he or his minions had ever cracked a history book. Each time this country has ignored the admonition that George Washington gave in his farewell address, to avoid foreign conflicts and entanglements, we have suffered.
When we intervened in the Phillipines we got Marcos. When we intervened in WWI Europe we got Hitler and WWII, When we intervened in Cuba our reward was Batista and then Castro. When we intervened in Viet Nam we got ten years of grief and death and a marble wall covered with 56, 000 names. When we intervened in Chile we got Pinochet. When we intervened in Iran we ended up with the Ayatollahs. The idea of spreading freedom at the point of a gun has always shown dismal results.
You don't enforce freedom. You teach freedom.
Democracy only works when there is a well informed and involved population. Some of the Iraqis voting in this election had to be read the ballots. They didn't even know who was running for what office. Just putting a purple fingerprint on a ballot and stuffing it in a box does not a democracy make.
Despite the encouraging turnout in the Shia and Kurdish regions, the Sunnis have been staying away in droves. This looms as the spoiler for an effective Iraqi democracy.
According to Associate professor of history at St. Norbert College, Robert Kramer:
"Despite their numbers, these are the people who for centuries have been the economic elite of the country ... the political, the military and intellectual elite of the country. So they can't be left out of the political equation without enormous consequences."
The Poet's Eye sees blossoming hubris in the foreign policy of the Bush administration.
After more than two-hundred years, we have not perfected our democracy. We are still working the bugs out. Yet Bush and Co. are going to patent the imperfect and franchise instant democracy throughout the world. These idiots expect a four-thousand year old culture to turn on a dime and give birth to democratic values in a hot six months. C'mon, I was born at night, but not last night.
