Remember what happened when the Iraqis tried holding their own real elections in 2003?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42905-2003Jun27?language=printer

Occupation Forces Halt Elections Throughout Iraq

By William Booth and Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, June 28, 2003; Page A20

SAMARRA, Iraq -- U.S. military commanders have ordered a halt to local elections and self-rule in provincial cities and towns across Iraq, choosing instead to install their own handpicked mayors and administrators, many of whom are former Iraqi military leaders.

The decision to deny Iraqis a direct role in selecting municipal governments is creating anger and resentment among aspiring leaders and ordinary citizens, who say the U.S.-led occupation forces are not making good on their promise to bring greater freedom and democracy to a country dominated for three decades by Saddam Hussein.

The go-slow approach to representative government in at least a dozen provincial cities is especially frustrating to younger, middle-class professionals who say they want to help their communities emerge from postwar chaos and to let, as one put it, "Iraqis make decisions for Iraq."

"They give us a general," said Bahith Sattar, a biology teacher and tribal leader in Samarra who was a candidate for mayor until that election was canceled last week. "What does that tell you, eh? First of all, an Iraqi general? They lost the last three wars! They're not even good generals. And they know nothing about running a city."

[Selatius]

1. Wow, I don't remember hearing any of this. It went down the Memory Hole. K&R

This probably pissed off the earliest guerrilla fighters.

[NNN0LHI]

2. ... probably pissed off the earliest guerrilla fighters...

Less than two months later (4 years ago today actually) the Iraqis bombed the UN headquarters in Baghdad. I am not much on coincidences.

Don

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/08/19/sprj.irq.main/

Truck bomb kills chief U.N. envoy to Iraq

17 dead, 100 injured by explosion at U.N. headquarters

Wednesday, August 20, 2003 Posted: 2:09 AM EDT (0609 GMT)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.N. special representative in Iraq and at least 16 others died Tuesday in a bomb explosion that ripped through the organization's headquarters in Baghdad.

Sergio Vieira de Mello, a veteran U.N. official appointed to the post in May, was killed when a bomb-laden cement truck exploded beneath the window of his office in the Canal Hotel at about 4:30 p.m. <12:30 p.m. GMT; 8:30 a.m. EDT>.

He was trapped in the rubble for several hours before he died. At least 100 people were wounded.

A U.N. official in New York said Tuesday night that a "substantial" number of bodies remained in the wreckage. Many were burned beyond recognition, and DNA tests will be required to identify them, the official said.

[Solly Mack]

3. Yep. Thanks for this!!!! K/R

"L. Paul Bremer, the civil administrator of Iraq, said in an interview that there is "no blanket prohibition" against self-rule. "I'm not opposed to it, but I want to do it a way that takes care of our concerns. . . . Elections that are held too early can be destructive. It's got to be done very carefully." "

I'm still looking for the article I know I read about sending Baathist officers back to the US for "training", so they could go back and "help"

[Poll_Blind]

4. k&r! n/t

PB

[Mnemosyne]

5. And the Iraqis' truly believed that when they held elections,

the US occupation would end.

[NNN0LHI]

6. That is true

Most Iraqis who were photographed voting thought they were voting to end the US occupation of their country.

That detail was omitted by most of our "liberal" media.

Don

[Mnemosyne]

7. And over two years later, the will of the Iraqi people is still ignored.

(bold is mine)

The Purple Finger

The Nation: Real Iraqi Election Results Being Ignored

WASHINGTON, Feb. 11, 2005

(The Nation)This column from The Nation was written by Naomi Klein.

snip>

The election results are in: Iraqis voted overwhelmingly to throw out the U.S.-installed government of Iyad Allawi, who refused to ask the United States to leave. A decisive majority voted for the United Iraqi Alliance; the second plank in the UIA platform calls for "a timetable for the withdrawal of the multinational forces from Iraq."

snip>

There are more single-digit messages embedded in the winning coalition's platform. Some highlights: "Adopting a social security system under which the state guarantees a job for every fit Iraqi... and offers facilities to citizens to build homes." The UIA also pledges "to write off Iraq's debts, cancel reparations and use the oil wealth for economic development projects." In short, Iraqis voted to repudiate the radical free-market policies imposed by former chief U.S. envoy Paul Bremer and locked in by a recent agreement with the International Monetary Fund.

snip>

So what's the prize? An end to occupation, as the voters demanded? Don't be silly -- the U.S. government won't submit to any "artificial timetable." Jobs for everyone, as the UIA promised? You can't vote for socialist nonsense like that. No, they get Geraldo Rivera's tears ("I felt like such a sap"), Laura Bush's motherly pride ("It was so moving for the President and me to watch people come out with purple fingers") and Betsy Hart's sincere apology for ever doubting them ("Wow -- do I stand corrected").

And that should be enough. Because if it weren't for the invasion, Iraqis would not even have the freedom to vote for their liberation, and then to have that vote completely ignored. And that's the real prize: the freedom to be occupied. Wow -- do I stand corrected.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/11/opinion/main673279.shtml


Everything seems ignored by the "liberal" corporate media. I had hoped the bad guys would be in prison by now with all the scandal after scandal, crime after crime of the last six and over a half long, long years.

And they would have been if not for that damn "liberal" media helping to protect them from paying for their crimes.

[scarletwoman]

8. Yes, I remember it well -- but it won't surprise me if very few others remember it.

Unless you payed very close attention, stories like the one at your WaPo link -- which appeared fleetingly and were generally not commented on by the rest of the corporate media -- were easy to miss altogether.

Over and over again, the same pattern. Some nugget of real news will break to the surface, only to be quickly drowned in the constant overwhelming flood of propaganda, misinformation and lies.

Thanks for bringing this back up to the surface -- especially for those who missed it the first time around.

sw