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September 28, 2004
Coming Soon: Staged Elections (in Iraq, Afghanistan and maybe in the U.S.)
Something’s very wrong in Iraq and administration’s trying desperately to hide this fact from the American people -- in fact, all the political moves by the administration at this point are directed at us, not Iraqis. I think it’s fair to say that there is little to no effort at convincing or winning over people of Iraq: such an effort would at least require stopping the greatly destructive aerial bombing of Baghdad and Fallujah, withdrawing the U.S. military from the streets, spending money on the already-crumbling infrastructure, allowing for real elections....
But none of that will happen anytime soon because we, not the people of Iraq, are the target audience. So, we get Ayad Allawi touring D.C. as part of Bush’s reelection campaign; we get the U.S. military press releases about bombing “safe houses” in Sadr City and Fallujah that nobody in Iraq believes; and we are now witnessing the initial stages of getting us to accept pretend elections as imperfect but real elections.
All this is to placate and misinform the American people. The people in Iraq will know sham elections from real ones, of course. And of course, imperfect elections can be acceptable at certain times in history; however, what they are trying to market are sham, not imperfect, elections.
This propaganda effort reminds me of the story about the cloud cover over German cities the Allied censors did not want reported to the British and American public during World War II. As Walter Cronkite recounts in a Newsweek article, the information wasn’t being withheld from the Germans:
Once in England the censors held up my report that the Eighth Air Force had bombed Germany through a solid cloud cover. This was politically sensitive; our air staff maintained that we were practicing only precision bombing on military targets. But the censors released my story when I pointed out the obvious--Germans on the ground and the Luftwaffe attacking bombers knew the clouds were there. The truth was not being withheld from Germans but Americans.
Just as such, the propaganda system is currently aimed squarely and almost solely at us. (The opinions of people of Iraq have long ago ceased to matter except to the degree they can kill American soldiers. Is that not a horrible incentive system we have set up here?)
Pretend elections are the last leg of the pretense edifice of the war on Iraq. The Weapons of Mass Destruction have turned into Weapons of Mass Destruction Related Program Activities in My Head. Terrorism threat posed by Saddam Hussein has turned into massively-increased actual terrorism threat due to our occupation of Iraq. Reconstruction, it seems, is just another name for transferring Iraq’s oil money to Halliburton. So it’s crucial for the propaganda system that they make us believe that at least --at least-- Iraq and Afghanistan will have real elections.
It was relatively unsurprising to learn that CIA had plans to secretly throw its weight behind candidates favored by the administration. It was also almost predictable that Rummy would lecture us about how a bit of election would be better than none -- which, of course, is true in the abstract but is no excuse when we are one of the main forces behind limiting electoral possibilities. In fact, that’s the last big lie that is gathering some attention: the last thing the administration wants is real elections in either Afghanistan or in Iraq. But, it desperately needs the appearance of some form of elections.
Empire Notes has been covering all this and more about sham elections in detail -- here’s a great piece about sham elections and here’s analysis of the New York Times and Washington Post editorials on the topic. All are must-read. In fact, Empire Notes makes a plea that people mobilize now to try to expose this latest scandal while there is still time to do something about it -- especially with elections scheduled for January in Iraq. I totally agree. For once, I hope, we can try to be ahead of their sleazy curve.
I guess my one hope is that having suffered through one stolen election, the American people will be more sensitive to the attempts to deny people of Afghanistan and Iraq a chance at real elections -- especially after they were told that this chance was why they had to endure so much suffering, death and destruction.
Posted by zeynep at September 28, 2004 09:07 PM
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Comments
It seems to me that Bush (or at least his saner advisors) might be quite pleased to see the election of an anti-occupation government which would ask the coalition to leave. That would give the coalition a way out out of the quagmire without losing face. If Iraq is left in chaos, coalition leaders can then say, "we were willing to stay on and finish the job, but the government asked us to leave, so the responsibility is theirs".
Neither Bush nor Kerry can admit before the US election that they want out of Iraq, and it's obviously in Bush's electoral interest to sound optimistic. But I suspect that the administration (whichever it is) will be much more realistic after the election. Whatever Bush himself may believe--and perhaps he really is stupid enough to still think the US can pacify Iraq by force--I suspect his advisors have more sense. Even Rumsfeld has now admitted that the US will probably withdraw while resistance remains.
Posted by: Richard Wein at September 29, 2004 06:32 AM
Myself, I find it impossible to trust Bush, as to whether he'd to change anything after the election.
Kerry's been quiet about "what he'd do". To me, that sounds ... not unwise.
Kerry's not in the CEO seat, right now. He doesn't have access to the 'intelligence' that won't be let-out to the congress or to anyone but the "commander in chief" and whomever of his cadre, as well as the pentagon's chief commanders.
Granted, there's been "news" about what's been going on, and there've been some more direct, honest, and thorough accounts, about what's been going on. It's hardly a situation to make a "hail mary" pass about, though, for one who would be the chief of the executive branch.
Currently:
/"More push more troops more shoot ... and more 'pretend that this is being successful'"/
versus
/"more attacks meant to (A) undermine the US and other-national presence and (B) to counter any perception of 'the US as a helper'"/
... seems to be the way of things, there, no?
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