Kate
Reading through ASZ this morning…I share skepticism, and am sickened also by the cloying sententiousness of Bush et al. about the elections, however:

the theocracy that many experts predict will most probably evolve over the coming months. As we go through the day, don’t lose sight of the fact that this thing isn’t about Iraq. It’s a dog and pony show for America. The ultimate reality show, if you will.

I disagree. The shia may emerge from this emboldened. Politics is perception, and according to even the inimitable Fisk the will of a long oppressed people is now firmly yoked to American occupation. This strange relationship could bite the u.s. in the ass, but, based on the results thus far, a war of national liberation whose final ignominious image is Green Zone staffers hanging on to departing helicopters, fleeing for their lives, is unlikely.

Posted by: slothrop | Jan 30 2005 16:47 utc | 3

slothrop
i think you are quite wrong – i thinky you underestimate both the nature & the strategy of the resistance – tom me they follow the classic rules laid down through history against an occupation
in the clearest possible terms the resistance are winning
the people are losing & in our slaughterhouse – the people are always the losers
the elections – a cruel & vicious pantomime – ridiculing national aspirations & making as complete a mockery of ‘democracy’ as can be made – in front of a world press – who themselves are completely transparent in their fear & cravenness

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 30 2005 18:11 utc | 5

I think stoy’s got it.
It’s all about short-time newscycle management rather anything approaching long, or even medium, term policy development.
Why?
Political expediency in large part, of course.
But, in addition, The Cult of the Twig still thinks the PNACkian prize is big enough that nothing that goes wrong on the road to valhalla matters.

Posted by: RossK | Jan 30 2005 18:43 utc | 7

Bottom line is will Bush abandon 14 military bases along with control of oil revenues and other economic controls currently operating in tandem with the interm govt? I think the Shia majority(under Sistani leadership) has seen elections as a bloodless vehicle to legitimacy. After that legitimacy has been assumed, post election demands for the end of occupation (&economic hegemony) will be the same as it ever was : US out in all respects. Remember, along with the power to write the new constitution, also comes the power to control the new Iraqi army, national guard and police force. This is probably one reason for all the foot dragging in the formation and arming of such forces. So the new armed forces should become an expression of the new Shia control, and sectarian issues aside, the Shia and the Sunni are united in their demand for an end to occupation. I would imagine the election will only intensify resistance against the US position. Partition is only in the US interest, and will be resisted by all factions except perhaps the Kurds.

Posted by: anna missed | Jan 30 2005 19:31 utc | 9

anna missed
US out in all respects
And that would be a catastrophe for u.s.
Again–this is why the occupation is a freakshow–u.s. must have enough sunni resistance to justify the calculus of geopolitical interests dear to neocons. Such necessary evils, and i assume Negroponte sleeps well. What interesting times these are (redux…).

Posted by: slothrop | Jan 30 2005 19:54 utc | 11

Where’s Pat when you need her?

Posted by: slothrop | Jan 30 2005 20:02 utc | 13

BTW, thanks for the link b.

Posted by: stoy | Jan 30 2005 20:22 utc | 15

Words from Iraq

Posted by: Fran | Jan 30 2005 21:02 utc | 17

Thanks Fran for those links – valuable

Posted by: b | Jan 30 2005 21:56 utc | 19

former lt. col Karen Kwaitkowski noted (anyone remember the documentary name?) that the bases in Afghanistan are located along the pipeline through that country.
As far as I know, that country has one area, Kabul, that Karzai has some power over. maybe I’m wrong, and if so, please correct me.
but it seems that the warlords are as strong as they were (and protecting the poppy crops), while the U.S. is there only where their interests are…along the pipeline.
so, where are those fourteen bases in Iraq, I wonder? how many troops will need to stay in Iraq to maintain them (and the pipelines in Iraq, I presume.)
btw- Iraqization didn’t include Iraqis deciding their own economic fate, did it? ..and does it? Bremer was quick to sell off Iraq. who will enforce the Monsanto gm crop provisions, I wonder? what if Iraqis don’t want foreign companies “owning” their country? …actually, it seems that a few families in Iraq have been able to concentrate ownership via their alliances with U.S. and other western corporations.. So, it’s an oil-i-garchy?
sounds familiar.

Posted by: fauxreal | Jan 31 2005 2:04 utc | 21

b real
good catch

Posted by: slothrop | Jan 31 2005 3:35 utc | 23

We leave fortifed Gitmo style bases in Iraq then start picking on Iran, the Shia in both countries hook up and our soldiers are eating shit sandwitches. Then maybe Bush will get impeached.

Posted by: stoy | Jan 31 2005 6:47 utc | 25

I just have been reading through comments on Iraq’s election. One thing that has been nagging in the back of my head while reading, maybe I have been dreaming it up, but wasn’t this election basically organized under the supervision of the UN?????? Not one word about the UN, one would think Bush has organized the election single handedly.
So, if these elections were successful, what still needs to be seen, wouldn’t this be a great success and validation for the UN?

Posted by: Fran | Jan 31 2005 6:58 utc | 27

I’m an insomniac tonight. argh.
Jerome- I think it’s the natural gas pipeline to the Caspian basin that Kwiakowski was talking about.
I thought that deal was negiated with Pakistan a while back (thought I read it on Asia Times online) to extend the pipeline to them. India would be the next place for negotiations.
So, this woman who worked in the Pentagon is wrong about this issue? Interesting, if so.

Posted by: fauxreal | Jan 31 2005 8:04 utc | 29

children of iraq

Posted by: annie | Jan 31 2005 10:13 utc | 31

@Coleman
The Israeli disinformation side DEBKA puts the number at 40-45%.
60% seams very high to me.
Out of some 2.5 million expatriate voters only 250,000 registered – 10%. In many places with significant population like Tikrit and Fallujah only a small percentage registered at all.
So whatever this 60% is supposed to be, it is most sure not 60% of possible voters. I could be 60% of registered voters but even is doubtful in my view.
Anyhow, they will put up Allawi again and Chalabi for Interior or something like that. The robbing and killing will continue.

Posted by: b | Jan 31 2005 11:08 utc | 33

annie, what lucky children they are, with the worlds biggest adventure playground provided for them by the wonders of American know-how.
The only reason they aren’t showering those troops with flowers is that the French bought all the flowers from Saddam in exchange for weapons of mass destruction that they hid in Iran.

Posted by: Colman | Jan 31 2005 11:16 utc | 35

Jérôme, that needs to go on the front page. Those aren’t parallels, it’s as if the media are recycling articles and substituting names:

U.S. Encouraged by Iraqi Vote:
Officials Cite 72% Turnout Despite Insurgent Terror
by Paid Shill, Special to the New York Times (31/1/05)
WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 — United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in Iraq’s election despite a terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.
According to reports from Baghdad, 72 per cent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday.  Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the insurgents.
The size of the popular vote and the inability of the insurgents to destroy the election machinery were the two salient facts in a preliminary assessment of the nation election based on the incomplete returns reaching here.

Posted by: Colman | Jan 31 2005 11:25 utc | 37

Oh, silly me. So the the 5.85 million registered voters were in Vietnam?
Ah well, the numbers I have seen has refered to per cent of registered voters voting so I was susceptible to a low number of registered voters. Forget my last post.

Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Jan 31 2005 13:19 utc | 39

From the Stars and Stripes: Insurgents’ threats keep Ramadi residents from voting

At another polling site in the Sofiya district of Ramadi, the polls were more active. More than 100 people had voted by early afternoon, officials said. There were eight polling stations in the city of Ramadi, U.S. and Iraqi officials said, and they estimated that about 1,000 people cast ballots during the day.

If I understood this correctly, about 1000 people voted in a city with approx. 400’000 inhabitants.

Posted by: Fran | Jan 31 2005 13:29 utc | 41

Fig-leaf freedom – One election does not a democracy make, writes Brian Whitaker

President George Bush has pronounced the election in Iraq a success. “The world is hearing the voice of freedom from the centre of the Middle East,” he said yesterday.
Since this is more or less what he was bound to say anyway, the only surprise is that he waited until four hours after the polls had closed before saying it.
It’s a curious sort of freedom where candidates cannot campaign openly for fear of their lives and where, despite the tightest security that the occupation armies and the Iraqi forces can provide – curfews, banning cars from the streets, intensive searches at polling stations, etc – more than 40 people still die.
…
Whatever the results when the votes are finally counted, it is already clear that the emerging system of political parties is based around interest groups and men of influence rather than debates about policy – a system that may look vaguely democratic on the outside but is actually a barrier to genuine democracy.
Much of this is the fault of the Bush administration which, for its own reasons, has turned the ballot box into a symbol of freedom around the world without paying much attention to the slow and laborious business of creating the civil institutions that make elections meaningful.

Mike Whitney: ‘Iraq’s electoral fiasco’

The only way the Iraqi elections would have been interesting is if they’d stuck Saddam’s name on the ballot. Then we could’ve seen whether the Iraqi people are sick enough of Bush’s farce to want a return to the old order. Instead, we’re left ferreting through reams of trivia to sort out what the voting really meant.
It’s easier to figure out what it doesn’t mean.
It doesn’t mean that the water that has been off for 8 straight days in Baghdad will come on anytime soon. Nor does it mean that the sputtering electrical grid will work for more than 4 hours a day, or that anyone is going to clean up the raw sewage that’s coursing through the streets in downtown Baghdad. And it certainly doesn’t mean that the newly “elected” officials will have any real influence over borders, air space, oil extraction, economic policy, deployment of troops or any of the other powers we normally associate with sovereign leaders. (Even the ridiculously named Iraqi National Bank is completely owned by foreign investors) Those will still be in the hands of their US overlords. They will however, be frequently photographed by an enthusiastic media eager to display America’s latest satraps to the world. And, they can also expect an engraved invitation to the upcoming State of the Union Speech, where they’ll be showcased next to Crawford Laura in the front-row, upper-deck, like some exotic Amazonian bird captured in the wild. (The Bush people are very big on diversity.)

Iraqi women find election a cruel joke

Having for years enjoyed greater rights than other Middle East women, women in Iraq are losing even their basic freedoms — the right to choose their clothes, the right to love or marry whom they want. Of course women suffered under Saddam. I fled his cruel regime. I personally witnessed much brutality but the subjugation of women was never a Baath Party goal. What we are seeing is deeply worrying: a reviled occupation and an openly reactionary Islamic armed insurrection taking Iraq into a new dark age.
Every day, leaflets are distributed across the country warning women against going out unveiled, wearing makeup or mixing with men. Many female university students have given up their studies to protect themselves against the Islamists.

Posted by: Fran | Jan 31 2005 16:13 utc | 43

Raed has interesting numbers: Vote For Food

The fake government in Iraq announced that 72% of Iraqis voted today. Later they announced that 8 million Iraqis voted, which means that around 56% voted because the number of Eligible voters inside Iraq is more than 14.27 million.
There is NO WAY that the primitive weak Iraqi government could know how many people went to vote today this fast, and these numbers are mere exaggerated guesses.
Yet, they are stupid enough to miscalculate numbers.
The number of Iraqis outside is more than 4,000,000. 56% of Iraqis are older than 18 years, which means that around 2.5 million Iraqis are Eligible voters outside Iraq. Less than 250,000 of them voted.
The surprise is that by a simple calculation, the total number of Iraqi Eligible voters inside and outside the country is more than 16.75 millions, and the number of people that actually voted is less than 8.25 million !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LESS THAN 50% VOTED
These are Illegal elections then!
Voter Turnout Is NOT Enough to Legitimise Elections!!!
Even with all the lies, even with threatening people’s means of survival, it doesn’t seem that it worked
:*)

And if the food part of his post is true, the whole thing is even more disgusting and an even bigger sham.
Well, this is the last post for today, hope you all have a great discussion at the bar.

Posted by: Fran | Jan 31 2005 17:22 utc | 45

Elections have become a public fetish of ‘democracy’, press feeds for the propaganda papers, aimed at the complacent soccer Mom, the naive impoverished, the gloating, hypocritical, rich.
Recent experience (US, Ukraine and now Iraq) tells us that they amount to no more than rigged beauty contests. Sadly, in Iraq, there were not just votes to be counted, but bodies as well.

Posted by: Blackie | Jan 31 2005 19:44 utc | 47