Heck Tom I'll sick my neck out and make a prediction about Sunday's "election".
We are going to lose and lose big. We being anyone with even a bit of common dignity that is.
Well stated, Tom.
The NEOCON crowd (of which Eric Rittberg is a low level operative) love to vilify anyone who dares to state an objection to the their actions and or their propaganda.
Their modus operandi is "attack, ridicule, vilify" all the while, claiming moral and intellectual supremacy based on a combination of false rhetoric in support of "freedom and constitutional government" by way of a omnipotent federal government, and their current control of the political power structure.
I've yet to see any real objections to the expansion of the Federal Government or the reduction of Civil Liberties occurring in this country under their watch, by people like Dondero, who apprently support nearly anything Bush and Co. say or do.
Instead, they are constantly creating new boogeymen designed to divert attention from their false promises and dangerous miscalculations.
Their downfall will be their reliance on propaganda and their increasingly unrealistic world-view.
continued...
Their idiotic intent on ridding the world of "Tyranny" (by way of Tyranny, no less) will only serve the purpose of uniting a coalition of nations (some "good" and some "bad" from a Libertarian point of view) that will come to view the US Hegemony as a true threat to their sovereignty, if not outright existence.
I submit that the real cost of the Iraq invasion and occupation, along with the extension of this into other countries such as Iran, Syria, North Korea, etc.) will be that our military capabilities will be over extended and overexposed. Our real long term threats are not Terrorists, although they do constitute a lower level threat), no, the real threats have always been Russia and China. These countries have used our over-reaction to 911 as justification for aligning together against US and bolstering their own interventionist agenda's. They have nuclear capability and large conventional forces and poplations too large to ever occupy. Further, the
continued...
Further, the unjustified invasion and occupation of Iraq provided both of these military threats invaluable opportunity to analyze our actual military capabilities in a real world environment, without exposing their military to the same scrutiny.
We would have a much stronger national defense today if we had not exposed our military capabilities fighting what was essentially a castrated third rate military, when at best we should have been working to assassinate Saddam Hussien (assuming a real threat of could be proven to exist from Hussien towards the US).
The mistake of invading and occupying Iraq has provided invaluable lessons to our real long term strategic military threats, and has create the framework (through the general nationalist political environment and specifically through legislation like the Patriot act and other related Intelligence 'reforms") for a Hitler like madman to take control of our government at a future time.
Even if you think that
Continued...
Even if you think that G.W. Bush is a "great" political leader, these new (and very dangerous) political powers will be there for his replacement and their replacement. And just like GW Bush assumes that his elect is a mandate for him to do as he pleases, so will his replacements assume that their election mandates support for whatever it is they really wish to do.
Thanks for nothing, Neocons! (and fake Libertarian's like Dondero, Boortz, etc.)
a href="http://flashoffreedom.com/index.php/
archives/2005/01/28/blithering-idiot/trackback/">http://flashoffreedom.com/index.php/archives/2005/
01/28/blithering-idiot/trackback/
Tom, about those election observers. They're observing from....wait for it....Jordan.
tex,
You know ... I should have seen that one coming.
The candidates are anonymous so that they don't get assassinated
The polling place locations are unannounced so that they don't get car-bombed.
76% of the Sunni population has already said "not playing."
And the guarantors of proper procedure are watching from another country.
Am I missing something? Why the fuck are they calling this thing an election?
Tom Knapp
Why the fuck are they calling this thing an election?
Because the Bushies create their own reality. Jeez, are you the only one who didn't get the memo?
I support proportional
representation in the U.S.
I wouldn't need to know the
names of the entire LP party
list to vote Libertarian.
My guess is that most voters
would never take the time to
become informed about any
list. They would at best
know must a few leading folks
on the list.
Does the typical German voter
know the entire Social Democrat
and Christian Democrat list?
Similarly, I think most Kurdish
voters know enough about the
Kurdish list and most Shiite
voters know enough about the
Sistani list. And I think
they know what the lists are
about.
The complaints about the voting
process seem to be very much
anchored in an approach that focuses
on direct election of a leader--
with special focus on that person's
personality. What is so great
about that approach?
Admittedly, things are really
tough for the Iraqi minor parties.
I am not surprised that most
Kurds voted for a unified Kurdish
list and most Shia for the list
blessed b
Bill,
Good points. In most parliamentary/proportional representation systems, a list and possibly a "flagship candidate" or person whom everyone knows is often enough.
However, outside of the Sistani list and the unified Kurdish list, there are something like 170 other lists ... in a country where all parties except the Arab Ba'ath Socialist Party were illegal for 35 years or so.
Hopefully, having an election before diverse parties have been able to organize and actually get their message out won't totally skew the process over the long term. Kurdish Unity and Sistani's party would do well in any case, but there may be parties that will become competitive in the future ... if they aren't outlawed or stuck with hurdles imposed by the "big guys" who just won a measure of control of the process.
Tom Knapp
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