The Iraqi Vote Has Begun...

[elucidator]

Yeah, but…

The quote is future-tense, yes? Such and such is expected; turns out, didn’t happen that way. So its not so much that they say something that isn’t so, but expected something that didn’t pan out.

Different kettle of pigs.

[Kimstu]

manhattan: *If a credible media organization reports on this, we’ll check it out. *

:eek: “I work — and I slave — and dis — is da thanks — dat I get!”

Oh well, back to work…

@electroniciraq

5. The rules for polling and who can or can’t be a candidate were set, essentially, by the US.
   Rules were set by the Independent Iraqi Electoral Commission, or some similar arrangement of those words. […]
   The Commission has absolute power to bar any candidate or organisation. It has banned a number of candidates but is so secretive that nobody knows who has been forbidden or for what reason. There’s been no due process, no establishing a case against a candidate before barring.
   Candidates and organisations taking part have to swear allegiance to Bremer’s law
   One of the bars is “moral turpitude”. That in itself is not unusual- many countries don’t allow a person with certain convictions, for example, from standing. The bar does not, though, apply to either Ahmed Chalabi, […] or Ayad Allawi […]

Well, the Los Angeles Times reported in October that the US was pressuring six major Iraqi parties to present a “unified electoral slate” of identical candidates. (Of course, there is nothing wrong with “unified slates” per se; IIRC New York’s “Working Families Party” frequently runs partly unified slates with the Democrats, for example.) The parties in question favored such a coalition for their own advantage, as it would increase their chances of winning seats. Should the Administration have been poking around in the Iraqi smoke-filled rooms? Did anybody really expect that they wouldn’t be?

The Washington Post reported on 16 January about the pre- and post-election selection process for the Iraqi candidates:

Being named a winner does not automatically mean the candidate would get a seat in the assembly. Once the 275 winners are named, the election commission would accept and investigate complaints that the individuals did not meet the requirements for candidacy. Each candidate signed a declaration filed with the commission that certified they met the requirements, including never having been a high-ranking member of the Baath Party, having a secondary education and never having been convicted of a crime “of moral turpitude.”

“There never had been a plan to investigate candidates before the elections because of the numbers” of candidates who are running, one election worker said. “If one is a winning candidate and he had lied on his declaration, he could be removed,” he added.

One indication there will be complaints based on the rules came last week. Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s party, which has its own slate, filed a formal complaint against the Sistani-associated party saying it should be prevented from using a picture of the grand ayatollah on its posters and literature. The complaint was based on the electoral law, adopted while the U.S.-run Coalition Provisional Authority ruled Iraq, which outlawed religious symbols used by parties.

So yes, it looks as though the electoral law was basically established by the US, but I see no indication that there have been any “secret barrings” going on: in fact, screening of candidates seems to have been deferred until after the ballots are counted. I have no idea what’s going to happen if Chalabi or Allawi falls afoul of the “moral turpitude” clause.

[ZombiesAteMyBrain]

@elucidator

Poor Zombie with his cites and evidence,

Just pointing out that I haven’t had a sex change, luci.

[elucidator]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/iraq/election_faq.html

…Some of the parties represented:

* Islamic al-Dawa (Islamic fundamentalists).
* Iraqi National Congress (exile group led by Ahmed Chalabi).
* Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Shia).
* Kurdish Democratic Party.
* Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. 

Smaller parties, such as the Iraqi Communist Party, which opposed the U.S.-led invasion, may also grab some seats in the election…

Seems to me, if the Communists can run, not much need to worry about exclusion on political grounds. Friend FinnAgain’s cite is troubling, to be sure, but a copyright by WorldNet gives me pause.

[manhattan]

Actually, absent a cite to the contrary I’m willing to believe that Iraqi expatriates in Israel were denied the vote. Iraq has indeed not yet recognized Israel – they haven’t changed a lot of things there yet, and you have to remember that just two years ago Iraq was giving money to suicide bombers in Israel.

With luck, the former and thus current Iraqi policy toward Israel will change. But that will be up to their democratically elected government.

[manhattan]

@Kimstu

manhattan: *If a credible media organization reports on this, we’ll check it out. *

:eek: “I work — and I slave — and dis — is da thanks — dat I get!”

I guess I’m glad you’re bothering, but at what level of BS would you not bother? Would it take an uncorroborated allegation from Saddam himself for you not to bother to refute it? Because VITW is about two steps away. One step would be organizations like Human Shield and Saddam’s new attorney Ramsey Clark. Just to give the head’s up – I don’t intend to take the time to refute any of the BS he’ll be presenting at Saddam’s trial either if it’s not corroborated by someone with a teensy shred of credibility. Might as well refute a Chick Tract.

[Kimstu]

manhattan: I’m willing to believe that Iraqi expatriates in Israel were denied the vote.

Me too. By the way, talking of expatriates, anybody know what’s up with the relatively low Iraqi expatriate voter registration? Apparently less than 25% of overseas Iraqis registered to vote, although over 90% of those who did register actually cast ballots.

I would have thought that the overseas Iraqis would have turned out in much greater force, especially considering that they weren’t risking their lives to vote. Was it just the long distances many had to travel to get to a polling station?

[manhattan]

Dunno. News reports mentioned that a lot of Iraqi expats are living in countries where Saddam loyalists operate or are suspected to operate. And there’s a lot of expats in Egypt, which didn’t have a poll set up. I’d be curious to see country-by-country data (Like, was it 60% in the US and Europe, where even most of the poor have a personal automobile and the danger was low and 10% in Jordan? Stuff like that). But maybe it’s better for everyone involved if there’s no “our expats are better” competition.

[Kimstu]

manhattan: I guess I’m glad you’re bothering, but at what level of BS would you not bother? Would it take an uncorroborated allegation from Saddam himself for you not to bother to refute it?

It would depend what he was saying, frankly. I tend to judge more on the nature of the allegation than on that of the source. If Saddam was claiming that telekinesis allowed him to bend spoons with his mind, I’d pay no attention; nor would I if Stephen Hawking was claiming the same thing.

But if somebody is saying something that sounds reasonable, I don’t see why it shouldn’t be investigated. After all, especially with the fungibility of information on the internet, generally unreliable sources can get hold of perfectly valid material.

And in fact, the validity of those electroniciraq claims seems to be good in some cases, bad in others. Wunta known that if I’d just said “oh, that site’s a load of codswallop” and refused to believe a word of it on that account.

[Ryan_Liam]

@manhattan

Actually, absent a cite to the contrary I’m willing to believe that Iraqi expatriates in Israel were denied the vote. Iraq has indeed not yet recognized Israel – they haven’t changed a lot of things there yet, and you have to remember that just two years ago Iraq was giving money to suicide bombers in Israel.

With luck, the former and thus current Iraqi policy toward Israel will change. But that will be up to their democratically elected government.

On the contrary Israeli citizen votes

[manhattan]

@Ryan_Liam

On the contrary Israeli citizen votes

Well I’ll be damned. Good for them! And him!

[Squink]

Apparently there was some funny business in christian areas of northern Iraq:

Under Kurdish control
At the community center, word spread that six ballot boxes in three Christian Assyrian areas in Iraq never arrived. Not only were Iraqi-Assyrians the object of terrorism before the vote, their polling places never opened. By Monday morning, Michael said, the ballot boxes had arrived, but there were no poll workers.
Some Assyrians were visibly angry. “There has been a campaign of terror to lower the turnout,” says John Michael, Ron’s brother. “The Kurdish Democratic Party prevented the ballot boxes from arriving in six towns under the military control of the U.S., which is presiding over the disenfranchisement of the indigenous Christian people.”

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/105/13.0.html

It’s hard to tell how widespread this was, or how credible. However I’ve seen similar stories from several distinct sources since monday.

[FinnAgain]

@elucidator

Friend FinnAgain’s cite is troubling, to be sure, but a copyright by WorldNet gives me pause.

As it now does for me… I apologize to the assembled Dopers, I had no reason to believe the cite was dishonest, now I do. I thought worldnet was just a global news agency.

Israelis of Iraqi origin can vote in Iraqi elections

[Coin]

I would just like to say here that I sincerely hope that in a year or two I will look back at this time and feel very silly and misguided for not having believed that the elections will make things much better for the Iraqi people.

[Avenger]

you have to remember that just two years ago Iraq was giving money to suicide bombers in Israel.

Manny , your continued posting of claims that you know full well to be untrue and that have been debunked on numerous occasions on these boards is truly a sight to behold.

I take your reply to my previous question to mean that, no, you don’t have a cite in support of your allegation that Electronic Intifada is a pro-terror organisation?

[elucidator]

A worthy example of the ranter’s art, available here:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6861528/#050131
(Scroll down to Correspondents Corner: Charles Pierce)

excerpts (fairly longish, sort of)

You do not own their courage.

The people who stood in line Sunday did not stand in line to make Americans feel good about themselves.

You do not own their courage.

They did not stand in line to justify lies about Saddam and al-Qaeda, so you don’t own their courage, Stephen Hayes. They did not stand in line to justify lies about weapons of mass destruction, or to justify the artful dodginess of Ahmad Chalabi, so you don’t own their courage, Judith Miller. They did not stand in line to provide pretty pictures for vapid suits to fawn over, so you don’t own their courage, Howard Fineman, and neither do you, Chris Matthews…

Pip, pip. Good show, that.

[bordelond]

I don’t think Pierce needed to make that point.

[Squink]

There’s an interesting bit of analysis in next week’s Newsweek:
Elections Are Not Democracy

The United States has essentially stopped trying to build a democratic order in Iraq, and is simply trying to gain stability and legitimacy
…
no matter how the voting turns out, the prospects for genuine democracy in Iraq are increasingly grim. Unless there is a major change in course, Iraq is on track to become another corrupt, oil-rich quasi-democracy, like Russia and Nigeria.
…
“The one precondition for democracy to work is a consensus among major ethnic, regional, or religious groups,” says Larry Diamond, one of the leading experts on democratization. This has not happened. Instead the Shia, Sunnis and Kurds are increasingly wary of one another and are thinking along purely sectarian lines. This “groupism” also overemphasizes the religious voices in these communities, and gives rise to a less secular, less liberal kind of politics.

[RTFirefly]

@New Iskander

Still no cheers for Bill Clinton’s vision of free Iraq being vindicated by recent election.

In the words of Eric Clapton, it’s in the way that you use it.

Let’s say I’m a pension fund manager, and I’ve got a theory that a particular kind of obscure investment will pay off big. If I invest my own money in it, well and good. If I invest whatever modest fraction of the pension fund in it that can be risked on high-fliers, also well and good. But if I bet the fund on it, then that’s bad.

Same deal here. Clinton subscribed to the suspicions about Iraqi WMDs enough to uphold sanctions, no-fly zones, etc. Not penny-ante stuff, but still small enough stakes to be commensurate with the level of evidence against Saddam.

On that same small pile of evidence, Bush decided to become a high roller, and sink essentially our entire Army into an Iraq invasion and occupation. Before the invasion, there were reasons to suspect that there was no ‘there’ there with respect to WMDs, and we found out afterwards that the war plan drawn up for the invasion gave little weight to the notion of WMDs’ existence there, as I pointed out shortly after the war, when the just-cited article appeared.

But getting back to the point, the evidence for Iraqi WMDs may have been strong enough for Clinton to use harsh language and keep the planes flying, but it was a damned weak reed to base an invasion on. And this war’s architects apparently knew it, since they didn’t really plan on the necessity of securing WMDs once their locations were behind our front lines. The evidence is that Bush believed in Iraqi WMDs a lot less than Clinton did, but he wanted us to believe in them a lot more. So he was deviating from Clinton in two directions at once, and not following him at all.

[RTFirefly]

@elucidator

A worthy example of the ranter’s art, available here:
MSN | Outlook, Office, Skype, Bing, Breaking News, and Latest Videos
(Scroll down to Correspondents Corner: Charles Pierce)

[excerpts]

Pip, pip. Good show, that.

Good show indeed. As I wrote in in response, Charles Pierce is my new hero.

I added the following sentiment:

Perhaps we should let the Usual Suspects* own the American rights to the Iraqi voters’ courage, in exchange for a pledge by each such Usual Suspect who wants in on the action, to sponsor the immigration applications of three such Iraqi voters, should the promise of Sunday’s election turn into the reality of civil war, ruthless authoritarian government, or a completely disintegrated state.

(Remember all those “Who owns the surplus?” op-eds four years ago? Funny how none of the writers are eager to ‘own’ a piece of the deficit today.)
*Here I’m talking about George Will, Chris Matthews, and all those kinds of Usual Suspects.