Violent intimidation campaign nearly paralyzes Baghdad

[Rose Siding]

snip>
Local newspapers announced Internet-only editions because printing-press employees won't leave their homes starting Friday. Shops sold out of large burlap bags of rice, potatoes, lentils and other Iraqi staples. Men lugged home huge canisters of fuel and kerosene. Women stripped duct tape over their windows to prevent the glass from shattering in explosions.
...
The remnants of campaign posters for interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi flapped in the wind at bus stops in Adhemiya. Allawi's face was burned off of one; his eyes were gouged out on another. Walls in the area were covered with graffiti supporting fighters in the western city of Fallujah, now controlled by American forces after a bloody battle with insurgents.

A 29-year-old man from Adhemiya who gave his name only as Ehab was asked the location of the nearest polling center.

"Shame," he hissed in response. "How could you ask that here?"

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/10750821.htm

[Skink]

1. The only goal I can see for this election taking place...

is we think we can take out a bunch of insurgents ( defenders of Islam ). Just another phase of the war. Maybe have a good corporate media day.

[98geoduck]

2. GOP experiments with new voter intimidation tactics.

Operation enduring freedom is in full swing.

[osaMABUSh]

3. Even if by some miracle a substantial number of votes are cast

can you imagine what will happen to the ballots, the election officials, and the actual counting process?

I suspect many of the actual ballots will be blown up and anybody associated with the counting attacked.

And then let's say they do get to count what's left. Will anyone believe the results?

I doubt if they get more than 25% turnout. Hell, in the US we only had 10 measly percent of the expatriates register! In the United States! Don't hear Bush talking about that.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. Well. This is working out nicely, isn't it?

There will be an election, after a fashion, in which only a few people will vote. Most likely there will also be a lot of explosions. But The Little Cowboy will tell us that because an election took place (even if hardly anybody voted in it and a whole bunch of people got killed), we have succeeded in bringing democracy to Iraq. We are SO good at elections, aren't we?

[Scurrilous]

5. Bombings continue on eve of vote

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/01/29/iraq.main/

Leaflets warn voters away from 'queues of doom and death'

<snip>

"With just hours to go before Iraq's first free election in half a century, at least eight people have been killed in two bombings at a U.S.-Iraqi military center.

Seven others were wounded in the attacks early Saturday at the coordination facility in Khanaqin, a Kurdish town about 100 kilometers (62 miles) northeast of Baquba near the Iranian border, authorities said.

One blast came when a suicide attacker detonated an explosives belt, said Col. Hassan Kareem, an Iraqi army officer from Baquba. Another bomb exploded at the center's main gates, according to a U.S. military spokesman.

A total of at least three Iraqi soldiers and five Iraqi civilians were killed in the bombings, and five Iraqi civilians and two Iraqi soldiers were wounded, the spokesman said. The injured were taken to a hospital for treatment."

[annabanana]

6. This goes out in one of my

"Not on TV" emails. We should all be sending out occasional such email to our less curious friends.

[DrBloodmoney]

7. Puppet-democracy here we come

This will only make it easier to get started. "No, of course we want the American troops to stay and continue killing civilians... after all it's our country-we need it protected"