The Vote
Just wanted to toss out ideas on what might happen during the upcoming election in Iraq.
I think that ultimately very little will change, things will continue in the same predictable pattern that we've been seeing for awhile now. In the next few weeks, as everyone knows, we'll see an increase in the amount of violence. The day of the election...more violence, maybe a bit worse but not as apocalyptic as some critics are suggesting. Then, once the election is over, we'll see a temporary decrease in the number of bombings. After a month or so the violence will increse yet again, and this will basically be the pattern we'll see off and on for atleast several more years. The situation will not drastically improve in the way that conservatives are suggesting and things will not be falling to peices in the way that liberals are suggesting.
The question is, what are we hoping to accomplish with this election? Iraqis are not actually getting to vote on very much. They're not voting for president, prime minister or anything like that, but instead they'll be voting for assembly-men and -women who will then write the new constituion. That's it. Furthermore, as a necessary security precaution, Iraqis will be forced to vote for candidates that are completely anonymous, people are being identified by their party affiliation only.
The point behind this election is two-fold: 1. to see if it removes some of the steam from the insurgency and 2. to simply to have it so that Bush can finally have some sort of symbolic victory. It's a necessary PR move since, no matter what happens during the election, the insurgency will be going on for many, many years. Conservatives will be calling this an enormous success for democracy and it doesn't matter how many people turn out to vote, how many are killed or what the results are. When it comes to defining success in Iraq, Bush has basically placed the bar about as low as it can go. Succes, to put it bluntly, will be achieved if the date of the election arrives and then passes. Ultimately, that is all we are asking.
The civil war that people are warning about (and this includes the CIA, not just Bush critics) is, I think, inevitable, but it probably won't take place for several years. We attempted to crush a small insurgency in Colombia in the early 60s and now, 40 years later, the effort is still ongoing.
People keep talking about Vietnam, but I honestly think the situation in Colombia has much more in common with Iraq.
Anyway, after the initial phase of the war Fox News-types said "Oh, the insurgency will die down once we capture Hussein". Well, it got worse after that. Then they said, "Oh, the insurgency will die down once the interim government takes control." Nothing changed. And now we're being told that this election will bring Iraqis much closer to self-control, which should take the wind out of the insurgency. To people predicting success and to people predicting catastrophe, I think the best advice is to calm down. Very little will be changing after this election. Success lies in our ability to begin facing the reality in Iraq, to recognize that the word 'democracy' is not a mystic charm that magically makes the world a better place. Smart policies make the world a better place, and until we start using them we can expect more of the same in Iraq and a continuation of Bush's empty rhetoric.
Er. Maybe if I watch cartoons I can lighten up a little bit, we'll see. It's been all politics here for the last couple of posts, so I think for a few weeks I'll just focus on more meaningless thoughts....the scattered and the meaningless, it's what I excel at anyway.
Thanks.
I think that ultimately very little will change, things will continue in the same predictable pattern that we've been seeing for awhile now. In the next few weeks, as everyone knows, we'll see an increase in the amount of violence. The day of the election...more violence, maybe a bit worse but not as apocalyptic as some critics are suggesting. Then, once the election is over, we'll see a temporary decrease in the number of bombings. After a month or so the violence will increse yet again, and this will basically be the pattern we'll see off and on for atleast several more years. The situation will not drastically improve in the way that conservatives are suggesting and things will not be falling to peices in the way that liberals are suggesting.
The question is, what are we hoping to accomplish with this election? Iraqis are not actually getting to vote on very much. They're not voting for president, prime minister or anything like that, but instead they'll be voting for assembly-men and -women who will then write the new constituion. That's it. Furthermore, as a necessary security precaution, Iraqis will be forced to vote for candidates that are completely anonymous, people are being identified by their party affiliation only.
The point behind this election is two-fold: 1. to see if it removes some of the steam from the insurgency and 2. to simply to have it so that Bush can finally have some sort of symbolic victory. It's a necessary PR move since, no matter what happens during the election, the insurgency will be going on for many, many years. Conservatives will be calling this an enormous success for democracy and it doesn't matter how many people turn out to vote, how many are killed or what the results are. When it comes to defining success in Iraq, Bush has basically placed the bar about as low as it can go. Succes, to put it bluntly, will be achieved if the date of the election arrives and then passes. Ultimately, that is all we are asking.
The civil war that people are warning about (and this includes the CIA, not just Bush critics) is, I think, inevitable, but it probably won't take place for several years. We attempted to crush a small insurgency in Colombia in the early 60s and now, 40 years later, the effort is still ongoing.
People keep talking about Vietnam, but I honestly think the situation in Colombia has much more in common with Iraq.
Anyway, after the initial phase of the war Fox News-types said "Oh, the insurgency will die down once we capture Hussein". Well, it got worse after that. Then they said, "Oh, the insurgency will die down once the interim government takes control." Nothing changed. And now we're being told that this election will bring Iraqis much closer to self-control, which should take the wind out of the insurgency. To people predicting success and to people predicting catastrophe, I think the best advice is to calm down. Very little will be changing after this election. Success lies in our ability to begin facing the reality in Iraq, to recognize that the word 'democracy' is not a mystic charm that magically makes the world a better place. Smart policies make the world a better place, and until we start using them we can expect more of the same in Iraq and a continuation of Bush's empty rhetoric.
Er. Maybe if I watch cartoons I can lighten up a little bit, we'll see. It's been all politics here for the last couple of posts, so I think for a few weeks I'll just focus on more meaningless thoughts....the scattered and the meaningless, it's what I excel at anyway.
Thanks.
posted by Samwick @ 5:53 AM
2 Comments:
At 5:49 PM,
Christopher said…
I think you are absolutely right when you say that the forthcoming election in Iraq has been arranged to take steam out of the insurgency, and as a PR victory for George Bush. This of course implies that this election isn’t about democracy in Iraq as such, but about democracy in Iraq only insofar as it facilitates the projection of US power in the middle-east, or facilitates a face-saving US withdrawal from Iraq.
But then wasn’t George Bush’s talk about “freedom” in his second inaugural speech, to do with “freedom” only insofar as it aids the projection of US power around the globe? If “freedom” gets in the way of the US doing what it wants to do in the world, then the toleration of autocracies will rationalized. Thus the word “freedom”, as used so promiscuously by George W, is merely a red herring to divert people’s attention away from the US’s real intentions. Thus, “freedom” is merely the velvet covering for the iron fist underneath.
Lest you think I’m targeting the US unfairly, I should point out that all imperial powers, or would-be imperial powers, from the British, to the Germans, to the Russians, have always masked their real intentions behind the rhetoric of altruism. It is the smile on the face of the crocodile as it prepares to eat its victim.
On the subject of Iraq, Richard A Clarke, in an article in the Jan/Feb edition of The Atlantic, postulates that an effective way for Iraqi insurgents to get large numbers of US troops out of Iraq, particularly National Guard units, would be for the insurgents to carry out periodic small-scale suicide bombings throughout the continental USA, in places like Las Vegas casinos and urban shopping malls. The NG, already overstretched, would be needed back home in such an eventuality. Hence the invasion of Iraq could bring about the very nightmare at home which Americans fear most.
Since I’ve already mentioned the Jan/Feb edition of The Atlantic, I may as well mention William Langewiesche’s article “Letter from Baghdad”, where he points out how badly the situation is deteriorating in Iraq, where the numbers of insurgents has quadrupeled over the past year, where not even Baghdad airport is secure after all this time, and where hatred of Americans grows by the day – exemplified by a $25,000 bounty for any American captured.
The article points out that it needn’t have been this way. But Americans have angered ordinary Iraqis, since “……..even short of the killing we have done, we have broken down their doors, run them off the roads, swiveled our guns on them, shouted profanities at them, and disrespected their women – all this hundreds of thousands of times every day. We have dishonored them publicly, and within a society that places public honor above life itself. These are the roots of the fight we are in. Now Saddam himself is re-emerging as a symbol of national potetency……………………The question is no longer who is against the United States in Iraq, but who is not…….”
Is this the Iraq of George Bush’s imagination?
At 10:49 AM,
Anonymous said…
Sure things will change. More will die, Americans and Iraqis. That's about it. It's enough, of course. The country will be as defiantly unstable and resistant to the US-UK agenda when Bush leaves office as when he entered it for his second term, maybe more so.
Incidentally, I couldn't help thinking when we saw his brother Jeb going off to see the aftermath of the tsunami... is this evil son of a bitch being groomed for the next Bush in the White House?
And did you notice that if you take Jeb Bush's initials and reverse them, you get something far more pleasing to think about than him and his rotten family?
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