Best and sincere wishes to Iraq on its vote and constitutional process

I sincerely and honestly hope that this marks the beginning of a free, open society that fits within the desires of the people of Iraq.

I don't believe it will, but that does not change what I wish for.

We liberals are sometimes accused of being happy when Bush fails, or America fails, or the Iraq invasion fails, because we seem excited by stories highlighting that failure. I just want to point out that I, and I believe this is true of all DUers, aren't happy about the failure, and would truly like to be wrong. We are happy that the failure is being reported, and hoping that the reports will make people alter a bloody, failing policy. But I would rather be wrong, and see a glorious success, for the sake of all people. We aren't happy, for instance, that Rove is a lying, traitorous criminal who caused the executions of American heroes and the collapse of our intelligence network on wmds. We are just happy that it may finally be exposed, since we've known the truth for years now. We are happy to see the messenger, not about the message itself.

Just my two cents.

MOST IRAQIS HAVE NOT EVEN SEEN THE CONSTITUTION THEY'RE TO VOTE ON.

Gee what "PROGRESS"!

It's expected to pass, because the VIOLENCE will keep Iraqis away from the voting booths.

Gee what "PROGRESS"!

Iraqis vote on 'invisible' constitution

Insurgency hampers distribution of crucial document as millions prepare to go to the polls this week...
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article318225.ece

#2. 2000 Americans dead...for an IRANIAN-STYLE ISLAMIC STATE of repressed women in IRAQ;

"Unmaking Iraq, the Constitutional Process Gone Awry,"

The Iraqi constitution as written will push that country toward full-scale civil war, a report from a nonprofit organization warns. Melissa Block talks with Robert Malley, director of the International Crisis Group's Middle East program.
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?l=1&id=3703

"It may well be more of a prelude to civil war than a step forward," Anthony H. Cordesman said in an analysis for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The Bush administration endorsed Iraq's proposed new constitution yesterday, but analysts warned that some provisions can be interpreted to undermine everything from the distribution of political power to a secular judiciary, from women's rights to fair distribution of oil revenue.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/24/AR2005082402217_pf.html

There are, however, significant doubts about the religious nature of the new constitution...

"It is written by Islamists for Islamists"

Zainab and her friend Zahra, 37, are both deeply apprehensive about the effect the constitution will have on women's rights. Since "liberation" by US-led forces they have seen the growth in the power of Muslim clerics and the diminishing power of choice.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article318609.ece

The Iraqi constitution's downside for women
http://www.juancole.com/2005/09/iraqi-constitutions-downside-for-women.html

Iraqi Women May Lose Basic Rights Under New Constitution
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0723-06.htm

Iraq's Draft Constitution Is Said to Deepen Divide...will likely trigger civil war...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/26/AR2005092601442.html

UN issues warning over Iraq constitution

There are fears that Iraq's draft Constitution, due to go a referendum next week, could trigger the break up of the country and even spark a bloody civil war.
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2005/s1473209.htm
Americans Die for Sharia (ISLAMIC STATE) in Iraq

It's so Abdul the Iraqi can have six wives. It's so women can be forced to wear the abaya, alcohol can be banned, and sharia law – Muslim religious beliefs as interpreted by a council of mullahs and "grand ayatollahs" – can become the law of the land. As one of the Shi'ite clerics' representatives put it the other day:

"We don't want to see equality between men and women because according to Islamic law, men should have double of women. This is written in the Quran and according to God."
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=4774

#3. Iraq "constitution"...A Lose-Lose Referendum;

Five days before Saturday's referendum on Iraq's proposed constitution, the U.S. foreign policy elite appears both anxious and gloomy, increasingly worried that win or lose, the process will bring Iraq one step closer to civil war and, with it, the possible destabilisation of the wider region.

"We've looked for the constitution to be a national pact, and the perception now is that it's not," Gen. George Casey, the commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq, told lawmakers here last week. "Now this constitution has come out, and it didn't come out as a national compact that we thought it was going to be."

Makiya believes the combination of violence and the constitution threatens "the very idea and very possibility of an Iraq".

Barbara Bodine, a veteran diplomat and Middle East expert currently at Harvard University, whose appointment to a senior CPA post after the invasion was blocked by neo-conservatives in the Pentagon, echoed that view.

"The United States has 'Lebanonised' Iraq. It is ironic that a structure that worked so poorly for Lebanon is now the template for Iraq."
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1012-03.htm

#4. LUCKY Iraqi women! STONING FOR ADULTERY coming soon!

La Repubblica: "Putting it in a nutshell, there will be no more stoning of adulterous women, is that it?"

Al-Yasari, cleric al Sistani's spokesman:
"Well, it depends. In the case of married women whom eye witnesses can accuse of betraying their husbands, the punishment can only be that. But in any event there will be very few exemplary sentences, and they will always be issued after a fair trial."

Welcome to "liberated" Iraq – that’s what our troops are dying for, and that’s what you’re paying for. It’s medievalism with a "democratic" face.

http://www.iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article/39110

And sure 'nuff, here we have it fresh off the presses today...

White House: Iraq vote would defy insurgency
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-10-14T160746Z_01_EIC458042_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-USA.xml&archived=False

STONING WOMEN! CIVIL WAR! VOTE for a "constitution" you've never read! That's PROGRESS if you're a bushbot idiot. CONGRATS, IRAQ.

:eyes:

It never happened, and I couldn't get on. Sometimes I think people think of women as a minority!

iraq could have been a much different situation if not for the greed, graft and corruption of bushco. it was always about power, exploitation and plundering of iraq and the us treasury.
There was never any consideration for the needs, desires or well being of iraq or its people.

I wish them well if they can ever cast off the yoke of the new overlords.
Bushco wraps itself in the language of freedom but the reality is worse and freedom is less than under Saddam for those who dont hail to the monstrous chimp.

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Installed under the sights of an American tank barrel !

I, too, wish them well--it gave me a boost to see that somebody else here did, too!

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Is a screwed-up orginal consitution mandatory for democracy?

Way to go, Iraq! wooohooo!

:eyes:

missing far too many facts.

every day after that, for the duration of the constitution and the nation.

That's the essence of democracy. It leads to corruption, manipulation, and horrifying abuses of anyone not able to vote with the majority. It's also the only system under which leaders have an advantage in seeking out the abused and trying to fix their problems. It doesn't always happen, but it's the only system under which it happens.

but I unfortunately have to humbly disagree with you. For instance, the US is a democracy but under this administration we are impossible to deal with. But then, we almost could be considered a dictatorship.

Hummmm... scratching my head. Now I confused myself.

The Vietnam experience kept this country out of another quagmire for exactly thirty years.

If anything Amerika's dangerous naive optimism causes more problems then it solves.

And you want to see them suffer even more to teach us a lesson?

There was no positive out of our actions in Viet Nam. Millions died. It did not stop us at all from killing millions, in wars and conflicts and terrorist operations in Central and South America and in the Middle East, including a quarter of a million people in 1990 in Iraq. That's 16 years after Viet Nam.

In Iraq along, we sold weapons to their enemy in a war in which we were also funding Iraq. The war cost millions of lives, including the gassing of the Kurds. Without our interference both nations would have run out of resources to wage war and would have reached a peace long before they did. We didn't want peace--we wanted them to fight until the last drop of blood in both nations was spilled into the sand. When that war ended we encouraged Iraq to invade Kuwait, then invaded them for doing it. Another quarter million lives. We placed embargos on them that choked the life out of an estimated million people, affecting the elderly and children most dramatically.

The stories are similar in Argentina, Honduras, Nicarauga, Panama, Columbia, and Cuba. Now we are working on Venezuela.

I don't care about our quagmires. Let us sink. Let us die if we can't be better world citizens. Our nation's last thirty years have shed oceans of blood, and we've bought nothing with that blood except the time and power to shed even more blood. The best thing for Iraq is to succeed so that we have to leave. Maybe then they can fix their own problems.

I don't expect anything good to happen, as I made clear in my OP. But I hope it does, anyway.

this vote is:

Voters said to hunt for polling sites in west Iraq

RAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) - Hours before a crucial referendum on a new constitution, voters in western Iraq, where many are expected to say "No," were asking themselves a troubling question: where are the polling stations?

"There are no voting centers in cities like Haditha, Hit, Rawa, Qaim, Ana, Baghdadi and the villages around them," Mahmoud Salman al-Ani, a human rights activist in Ramadi, said on Friday, listing locations across western Anbar province.

"There aren't actually any voting centers or even voting sheets in these cities ... Nobody knows how and where to vote if they decide to," he said of the predominantly Sunni Arab region.

Anbar, Iraq's largest province, runs from Baghdad to border Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia and is also the heartland of the Sunni-led insurgency. Much of the population is expected to vote against the U.S.-backed constitution on Saturday.

more

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/iraq_referendum_anbar_dc

Add to that this version of the constitution is a TEMPORARY one, they get to vote again on one in a year. This is another 'mission accomplished' empty facade and will not change the current dynamics in Iraq at all.

"...I believe this is true of all DUers, aren't happy about the failure, and would truly like to be wrong." I so wish you were right, though. But by a count of 13 to 1 in this thread so far, you have been proven wrong :(

No comment necessary. :cry: