Vote or no vote, we will kill you

"And to George W Bush, we say, 'You have asked us to bring it on, and so have we. Like never expected. Have you another challenge'?"
- Message from the Sunni Iraqi resistance, January 12

History will salute it in kind: the US administration of George W Bush, parts 1 and 2, has introduced to the world the concept of election at gunpoint. The guinea pig: Iraq, on January 30. The rules: candidates must be anonymous (otherwise they will be killed). Voters cannot go out and vote (otherwise they may be killed). Even if they wanted to vote, they wouldn't know where, because the location of the polling stations will be known only the night before the election.

Of 1 million eligible expatriate voters, only 10% will actually vote. There are no Sunni Arab candidates (in part because the US military killed - or jailed - many Sunni party and tribal leaders). For any Iraqi in Jordan, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia or Turkey, it will be impossible to cross the border and vote: borders will be closed for three days. Inside Iraq there will be curfews - and even traffic will be blocked. Half of all candidates have already withdrawn. And there will be no international monitors. As the names of the roughly 7,700 candidates on 80 party coalition lists are still unknown on the eve of polling day, no wonder the word on Baghdad's streets is that "the Americans gave us the first secret elections in history".

more...

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GA27Ak07.html

Don't tell the voters anything, just as long as they vote for the candidate of the ruling elite's choice.

in one form or another. The Mad Chimp just picks up the torch where the other dictators and tyrannts have left off.

:kick:

Useful, especially for linking elections in Iraq to voting machine problems in the United States with "secret" software. Also lets us point at the Bush Administration to blame for both problems.