Newsworthy Issues with the Iraqi 'Elections'

After the United States announced earlier this week that, regardless of the outcome of the Iraqi elections, Sunni Muslims would be guaranteed a certain number of positions on the future Iraqi governing council, the leadership of the interim government spoke out against the plan. Their response echoed the thoughts of all Iraqis that the U.S. might be overstepping its bounds in guaranteeing any faction in the country a place in the government. The U.S. rhetoric is all about democracy and guaranteeing freedom, but when things look like they might not go exactly the way we want them to during the elections, we forget issues of freedom and self-government to focus instead on the outcome WE want. No wonder so many people of the world despise our policies. We promise freedom and democracy--but only if it satisfies our desires and plans. What a load of patronizing, self-serving, defeatist bullshit!!

Either we want to encourage freedom and democracy or we want an American-friendly government. 'WE CANNOT HAVE BOTH,' we would seem to say. Much of this division of thought apparently comes from the DoD and Sec Rumsfeld who once guaranteed that Iraq would NOT have an Islamic government--even if that is what the people want. How much more hubris can we spread throughout the world? How can we discuss 'freedom and democracy', put so much emphasis on those concepts, and then say that we will attempt to control the outcome or alter the rules to benefit us? How is that freedom OR democracy?

Now, not only are our appointed leaders speaking out against our latest plans, but the upcoming elections have given Osama bin Laden a topic on which to speak. In a recent audio tape played on Al Jazeera reportedly from bin Laden, he praises Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi calling him the 'prince' of al Qaeda in Iraq. He praises al-Zarqawi's decision to rename his organization 'al Qaeda in Iraq' and declare his allegiance to bin Laden saying that the decision represents "a great step on the path of unifying all the mujahedeen in establishing the state of righteousness and ending the state of injustice."

All quotations and information comes from related articles in the CSMonitor between 26 Dec and 27 Dec.