US bans cleric from Iraq elections

[Khephra]

Bremer vetoes radical Shia leader in order barring militia members from politics

Jonathan Steele in Baghdad and Patrick Wintour
Tuesday June 8, 2004
The Guardian

Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shia leader whose militiamen have been fighting the US occupation forces in several Iraqi cities, was banned yesterday from standing in Iraq's forthcoming democratic elections.

Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq, signed an order stating that, with immediate effect, members of illegal militias "will be barred from holding political office for three years after leaving their illegal organisation".

Even if Mr Sadr disbanded his Mahdi Army in the next few weeks it would be too late for him to join Iraq's political process and contest the elections, due in January.

The armed uprising which he began in April has polarised the Shia community but has a large following of the young and unemployed. He could have expected a substantial vote for a seat in the new parliament.

more.........................

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1233651,00.html

[thebigidea]

1. After all, its best to have candidates with zero popular support

ah, love that DEMOCRACY.



I adore the fact that this "democracy" needs Mr. Bremer's signature on anything to be valid.

If Sadr is truly a "fringe figure" with only a few "deadender" supporters in a militia that has already been "destroyed" - uh, what's the problem? Why be scared of him?

[Teaser]

2. Dumb.

Coulda co-opted him, Jerry.

That would have been the smart thing.

These clowns are the biggest bunch of fuck-up artists I've ever seen.
Absolute masters.

[KissMyAsscroft]

3. Thats some democracy, right there!

How can anyone fall for this shit?

[Disturbed]

4. Puppet Govt.

It may be doubtful that al Sadr would want to be
part of this sham. Most of the Americans may fall for this sham. I highly doubt that most Iraqis will. The do know what colonialism is.

The US embassy, the largest in the world and 14 Military bases will be built as planned.

They will need to buy al Sadr off in some way or kill him and crush his followers. Private deals are being made to lower the violence in Iraq. That is the ultimate goal of BushCo so they can win the upcoming US election.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Any recent news on those 14 bases?

They seem to me the most obvious sign that the US intends to keep its forces in Iraq for years, whatever a future Iraqi government thinks. They don't get reported on much. Is construction still going ahead on all of them?

[sushi]

5. Iraq is getting "democracy"

not democracy.

[gatlingforme]

7. This is the Bremerization of Iraqi Government. What could we

have expected otherwise. It's one big folly after another. Farce as well. Bremer's Democracy comes in many forms. I am surprised they just don't have a one person ballot as Sadam had.

[teryang]

8. This is going to guarantee further violence

Ayad Allawi's militia has been disbanded. Did they disband the American Armed Forces?

<But Mr Straw said the letters between the US and the new Iraqi government, published yesterday, defined the relationship between the new sovereign power and the coalition forces and "set out clearly the need to reach agreement on fundamental security and policy issues, including policy on sensitive offensive operations". >

The need to reach agreement equals "follow orders."

<He (Powell) adds, however, that the force "must continue to function under a framework that affords the force the status they need to accomplish their mission, and in which the contributing states have responsibility for exercising jurisdiction over their personnel".>

Status of forces in a prostrate occupied nation equals 19th Century extraterritoriality.

[izzie]

9. That seems odd to me but-----

from the blogs I have read it is not a country that wants to be a religious state. Yet these religious people are the ones you hear about and seem to do the leading in the general news. As a general rule I do not see religious states working well at all. Any type religious seems to fail at running countries. When you get a few people telling the rest what God thinks and it is right, the rest are in trouble.

[Teaser]

19. Banning Muqtada insures continuing strife

Better to let him participate in the elections and do well than to have him and his movement continue their guerilla campaign against us and the interim government.

[Aidoneus]

10. ban the 2nd most popular figure in the nation?

Makes perfect sense..

[DoYouEverWonder]

11. Unless you want to make him

even more popular. Unfortunately, Bremmer doesn't seem to understand that people often want what they can't have.

[GreenArrow]

14. "Unless you want to make him even more popular"

maybe that is EXACTLY what they want.

[DoYouEverWonder]

16. You have a point

there are plenty of wackos in this misadministration that want to see the end of the world.

[GreenArrow]

17. exactly

.

[Disturbed]

12. 14 Military bases

Seems that BushCo wants to keep those bases out of the public view. Haven't heard anything about those. The new Iraqi Govt. will consist mainly of the puppets that have been appointed. Hell, the PM owns a freakin' newspaper in Baghdad. It will be a Govt. that the US approves of and any oppositon will be bought off, sidelined or crushed. The US finally it seems has taken the advice of the UK on how to colonize a country as they are following the British way. Bring back the former power blocks, set the rich against the poor and divide and conquer.

I have posted this many times because it is the underling basis of the way it's gonna be in Iraq. The new Govt. of Iraq is merely a front. This will not be publicized in the USA.

Full Sovereignty?
Throughout the spring, as hundreds died in the spiraling conflict, as Regime bosses applied their hardcore "anti-terrorist" tortures to innocent bystanders raked up in their occupation nets, as Regime mouthpieces prated endlessly of "liberation" and "sovereignty," Bush viceroy Paul Bremer was quietly signing a series of edicts that will give the United States effective control over the military, ministries -- and money -- of any Iraqi government, for years to come, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Bremer has placed U.S.-appointed "commissions" made up of Americans and local puppets throughout Iraqi government agencies; the ministers supposedly in charge weren't even told of the edicts. These boards "will serve multiyear terms and have significant authority to run criminal investigations, award contracts, direct troops and subpoena citizens," the Journal reports. Any new Iraqi government "will have little control over its armed forces, lack the ability to make or change laws and be unable to make major decisions within specific ministries without tacit U.S. approval, say U.S. officials."


Earlier Bremer edicts laid the Iraqi economy wide open to ruthless exploitation by Bush-approved foreign "investors"; dominance of such key sectors as banking, communications -- and energy -- is already well advanced. The latest dictates aim to ensure that this organized looting goes on, no matter what kind of makeshift "interim government" the United Nations manage to piece together. Bush's plans to build a Saddamite fortress embassy in Baghdad and 14 permanent military bases around the country are designed to provide the knee-breaking "security" for these lucrative arrangements



http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/05/21/120.html

[truthspeaker]

13. If that happened here, George Washington would be disqualified

[UpInArms]

15. that smell, that democrazy smell,

the hole hill .... it smelled like .... vic-try.

:puke:

[David__77]

18. Three years?! This is a recipe for increased insurgency.

Every competent military counterinsurgency strategist knows that hobbling ones opposition through opening the political process and giving liberal amnesties and so forth is much better than taking such a hard line. They will see...

[bemildred]

20. Further evidence why Shrub and Bremer get along. nt

[Beatrix]

21. Understandable

We banned confederates from being elected as well. Sadr would lead to some taliban style human rights abuses.