Iraqi Election: 2005

[toms]

Originally posted by Spider AL

Sorry, are you saying that an election in which the voters didn't know who the candidates were until the last minute, and in which an occupying foreign force vetted the list of candidates for those they found undesirable, in which voters eschewed voting for fear of violence... was democratic?

 

No, what i'm doing is taking a practical stance, rather than a black-and-white theoretical viewpoint.

 

I've said repeatedly that the elections weren't perfect. And i definately didn't support the war so i'm not some sort of pro-usa propoganda merchant.

 

What i'm saying is "considering the US didn't plan for what it would do after the war, and the mess the country was in, the elections were probably as democratic and as successful as anyone could have hoped for. They weren't perfect, but they were better than nothing".

 

I agree that the USA excluding certain candidates was undemocratic and a mistake. But I think that hiding candidates identities until the last minute was an acceptable trade off given the circumstances, and provided they were able to make their positions clear shouldn't have unduly affected the vote.

 

Its a tricky call, maybe delaying the elections until more stability had been restored would have been a good idea, but maybe the longer the US tried to restore order WITHOUT holding any sort of elections the worse the situation would have become. Its impossible to tell.

 

You seem to be arguing that because this election wasn't perfectly democratic in all ways it shouldn't have been held at all. But then you argued earlier that the US and UK elections aren't perfectly democratic (i agree), so they should never be held until they can be? If you decide that no elections can every be held until they are absolutely perfect, then there will never be any elections.

 

PS/ Personally i'd be interested to see if we could have a system here where you DON'T know who the candidates are. Everyone here votes on personalities or publicity or party loyalty (habit) rather than on ISSUES. I think it would be quite refreshing to have an annonymous election where each candidate lays out some basic position statements and you vote for the one you agree most with... not the one who is the colour you always vote for.

[Dagobahn Eagle]

I fully agree with the PS. Except I don't think it'd work that well at all, below the surface.

 

But yeah, it's been proven over and over by not only our favourite democracy (US), but also by other countries, that people vote based on charisma, fame, looks, etc. Look at Arnold becoming guvernour. Maybe I'm a conspiracy theorist, but has it struck anyone else that many people might have voted for him because he was a famous movie star?

 

In the old days, in certain countries (I believe Norway was among them), judges would sit blindfolded so that they couldn't see the suspect and make any unfounded judgements about him or her. Interesting concept, that, too.

[Spider AL]

No, what i'm doing is taking a practical stance, rather than a black-and-white theoretical viewpoint.

My stance is necessarily "black and white", in that I do not call the election in Iraq democratic, because it simply doesn't qualify.

 

In this thread, I have never EVER gotten into the argument as to whether it was a "necessary step" in the process of Iraqi reconstruction. That is irrelevant to the point that I have made, that it was undemocratic and that believing that it was "democratic", is a very dangerous delusion.

 

They weren't perfect, but they were better than nothing

I understand what you're saying Toms. But once again, you know that I haven't gotten into the "lesser of two evils" argument in this thread, and I'm not about to now. In the case of Iraq, the lesser of the evils available would simply have been to not attack Iraq.

 

I'm sure we agree on that point, so I won't belabour it, nor dispute it.

 

You seem to be arguing that because this election wasn't perfectly democratic in all ways it shouldn't have been held at all.

Where have I said that? I don't know where you got that from. I specifically said that delaying them would have been preferable in my view. I never said "NO ELECSHUNS EVAR!¬!!221".

 

Once again, believing that the elections were "democratic" is silly. It's an important word. Democracy is an ideal, and if we all bought into the Bush line and started calling Iraq a "successful democracy" because of some rigged election or other, we'd all be mad, mad, mad. And we'd be submitting to the propaganda.

 

If you decide that no elections can every be held until they are absolutely perfect, then there will never be any elections.

Once again you're putting words in my mouth. I do wish you'd desist.

 

Personally i'd be interested to see if we could have a system here where you DON'T know who the candidates are. Everyone here votes on personalities or publicity or party loyalty (habit) rather than on ISSUES

Once again I suggest to you that this is a bad idea, because: Bad politicians make policy promises before elections that they FAIL to deliver on after elections.

 

If all you knew about these people was their manifesto, you'd perpetually be voting for liars. I vote for the people I vote for, BECAUSE I've seen them before, and have judged them to be less prone to... well, lying than our major parties are.

 

If I couldn't judge on personality and record, how could I avoid voting for Tony Blair, or George Bush?

[toms]

Originally posted by Spider AL

Once again you're putting words in my mouth. I do wish you'd desist.

 

Sorry!!!

 

I'm not sure that we are arguing about much at all, apart from semantics...

[Wilhuf]

the lesser of the evils available would simply have been to not attack Iraq.

Not surprising to hear this from someone who believes that NAZIs should be elected to office. The level of isolationist indifference is really embarassing.

 

Yes, AL has focused on semantics for most of the thread. An obsessive and irrelevant focus on the semantics of 'democratic,' to the exclusion of any practical judgements on the meaning or significance of the election. His only assessment of the value of the election so far :

I should think that it showed them that AMERICA has a choice when it comes to Iraq's future. America and its stooges invade the country, blatantly rig the election in their favour and squelch all the opposition they can. How is that good for the Iraqi people? How does it preserve their identity, their culture and their free will?

 

Then answer is plain to anyone who reads the news. It's certainly true that the US has a choice in determining Iraq's future. Without US and coalition intervention, there would have been no election and no self-determination whatsoever. There would be no ethnic Kurd President (Talibani). No Shia-majority parliament. How does the election of such an executive and legislature not reflect the culture and free will of the Iraqi populace?

 

No evidence whatsoever exists that Iraqi voters were turned away by election officials. The election was democratic,especially under the circumstances.

 

If you can tell me that MCDonald's and WalMart have no project for Iraqi in the near future, I'll believe that they can control their future.

If the only contracts given are by American contractors, the only investors they have are American, I'm sorry, they have zero control over their future.

Tell me, does WalMart and MacDonald's draft Iraqi legislation and executive policy?

 

Reconstruction contracts are open to many nationalities, of course including the Iraqis. Is this more bitterness over the consequences of failure to support the intervention?

[Spider AL]

Not surprising to hear this from someone who believes that NAZIs should be elected to office.

...

 

 

Bahahahah!

 

Wilhuf's back and he's just plain making stuff up. Way to go there, Wil.

 

Yes, AL has focused on semantics for most of the thread. An obsessive and irrelevant focus on the semantics of 'democratic,' to the exclusion of any practical judgements on the meaning or significance of the election.

Is it semantics to call an election undemocratic? Is it semantics to criticise Zimbabwe's elections? Nope.

 

So it's not merely "semantics" to state the plain, simple fact that the Iraqi elections were in no way democratic, and were therefore not the great success and victory for democracy you want to believe they were. They simply weren't. I've proven it to you time and time again, and now you've gotten a second wind and are back for more. Well I'm here. Now. Oh yeah.

 

It's certainly true that the US has a choice in determining Iraq's future. Without US and coalition intervention, there would have been no election and no self-determination whatsoever.

It's your peculiar gift to simultaneously posit something, state that it's true and disprove your own assertion logically without any assistance from me, Wilhuf.

 

If the US determined Iraq's future, (which you admit here,) it wasn't "self-determination", (which you seem to think it was,) was it.

 

No, it wasn't.

 

How does the election of such an executive and legislature not reflect the culture and free will of the Iraqi populace?

Because the Iraqi populace weren't allowed to participate in a truly democratic process to determine the nature of their OWN government, Wilhuf.

 

The "interim" government may or may not accurately reflect the ethnic ratios of Iraq's populace, but it CERTAINLY does not reflect their free will, because they weren't allowed to exercise their free will in a truly democratic election. Clear?

 

Tell me, does WalMart and MacDonald's draft Iraqi legislation and executive policy?

If you genuinely believe that large American corporations DON'T have an influence over your government and therefore Iraq's future, then you're naive / ideologically blinkered / wilfully ignorant. Pick one.

 

Reconstruction contracts are open to many nationalities, of course including the Iraqis. Is this more bitterness over the consequences of failure to support the intervention?

Once again Wilhuf's schoolyard response to all assertions that the US is acting amorally: "You're just jealous".

[ShadowTemplar]

This thread is moving at high speed directly towards a brick wall...

 

That said, when it comes to Iraq, I'm becoming more and more optimistic. Certainly events have taken a better turn than anyone had any right to believe possible.

 

IMHO the most significant occurence in relation to the elections was the failure of the insurgents to systematically murder the voters. After all, everyone who had voted in the election had a blue thumb. Nothing would have been easier than establishing a checkpoint somewhere and demand to see everyone's thumbs - and then shooting everyone with a blue thumb.

 

The failure of the insurgents to do so can only mean two things: Either they lack the will, or they lack the capacity to murder civilians wholesale. The latter seems highly improbable, given the number of firearms and amounts of munitions readily available in Iraq.

 

If this analysis is correct, then there is hope that the situation in Iraq will eventually settle down once independent Iraqi police and military gets up and running.

 

Was the election democratic?

 

Probably not. Still, the same could probably be said about the first election in South Korea after the Korean War. And that worked out pretty well.

 

Does this success justify the invasion?

 

No. First of all, calling the invasion a success is something of an overstatement. It is still safer to fly to the moon than cross a street in downtown Baghdad.

 

Secondly, the invasion was illegal and irresponsible. Illegal because the majority of the UNSC was opposed to it and irresponsible because it was gambling with the a lot of Iraqi lives. And it still is.

 

Lastly, the collateral damage is getting increasingly unacceptable. A couple of thousand dead civilians is an unfortunate but unavoidable consequence of war, but now the butcher's bill is fast approaching Hussein's own.

 

In short the invasion has left behind a fractured UN, a devastated Iraq and a sinking feeling that the US is willing to gamble with the lives of millions of people in some high-stakes power game.

 

A rather steep price for such relatively minor successes.