Twelve of the fifteen provinces are stable and ready to vote......

[kentuck]

We will hear this numerous times between now and the election day in Iraq. Eighty percent of the provinces are ready to vote. Three or four are controlled by the "insurgents" and they want to keep the Iraqi people from voting for "freedom". Get used to this mantra. You will hear it several times in the next few weeks.

Except for the small incident, Mrs Lincoln, how did you like the play? They pretend that we have brought peace and stability to 80% of the country of Iraq but the truth is that truth and stability was already in 80% of Iraq. The three or four provinces that are rebelling against the invasion are the same three or four that have been rebelling from the beginning. There is no progress.

[tuvor]

1. Screw how many provinces are ready.

What proportion of Iraqis live in the provinces that aren't ready?

[mcscajun]

2. Yes...How many of those "stable provinces"

have little population...but quite a few stables.

I have a mental image of large, deserted provinces being quite stable indeed.

So, if we had 10 states in the US that weren't 'stable' enough for an election, would that seem a good thing to our BushCo government? Probably.

[Ladyhawk]

12. Yes, the unpopulated areas of Iraq are stable enough to vote. LOL!

I have a feeling that the insurgent areas are the "free" areas...sigh. Am I wrong to understand why these people would want Americans out of their country? I don't want our troops killed, but fuck, they shouldn't be there!!!!

[fishingriver]

3. The Revered Election

The administration has used this election as a beacon of false hope for impatient Americans who want to see progress in Iraq and also as the excuse for why the violence is escalating.

The truth is that the election is just another propaganda tool in what has been a series of BS claims hailed as "turning points" in the war.
First it was Bush declaring "Mission Accomplished" at the fall of Baghdad which is when the insurgency was born.
Then it was the "formation of an interim government" that was going to bring stability but didn't.
Next was the "capture of Saddam" which was going to defuse the insurgency. Soon after they quit calling them "saddam sympathizers" and switched to calling them insurgents.
Then it was the "handover of sovereignty" that was going to hurt the insurgency. In fact, they said the same crap about the hand over being the reason the insurgents were escalating violence last summer. Instead violence increased afterward.
None of these events has done much more than provide fodder for misleading sound bytes from the white house. This election isn't going to be any different I fear.

Iraqis don't recognize the names on the ballot which are being presented as slates rather than individual choices. The slates were chosen by the US appointed puppets. Why the he// should anyone believe that the Iraqis are going to be any more grateful for a bogus election than they were the botched occupation?

Before the election is over they are going to shift the focus to the next false hope which is the "training of Iraqi security gaurds" to take over for us. The suicide bombing wednesday in Mosul was an inside job done by an Iraqi in a security uniform.

The map below shows in white the areas where the security is not considered a problem. The areas in red are the high risk areas that Rumsfeld is referring to as the "unstable provinces" and the areas in purple are where recent violence has been reported. Baghdad is one of the three areas considered too risky for the vote. The author of this article http://www.antiwar.com/cole/?articleid=3647 asks the serious question of how you can hold a legitimate election when the nations capital and highest population area isn't included?

[newyawker99]

4. Hi fishingriver!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[fishingriver]

10. Newyawker

Thank you for the greeting. It does make a difference. *toasts*

Merry Consumeristmas!

[nostamj]

5. you forgot, it's "relatively" stable

and I keep wondering... "relative" to what?

[Solly Mack]

6. And we all know how much contempt Bush has for the election process

So each and every single time Shrub mentions "Elections in Iraq" I think about how much elections mean to Shrub.

a "vote" represents the "will of the people"

Bush has never concerned himself with the will of the people...in America or Iraq.

So each time he says it you know it means something bad.


The other day Chucklenuts said something along the lines of "an election doesn't mean a country has democracy."

Get the hint, America?

[jmowreader]

7. I thought there were 18 provinces in Iraq!

Saddam called Kuwait Iraq's nineteenth province.

I like the map above...it looks a lot like the US electoral maps the Repugs like to pull out. "See? Bush won 10 states to Kerry's three, so he's really more popular!" And then you find out that the 10 Bush states are Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Nebraska, New Mexico, Alabama and Mississippi, while Kerry's are California, New York and Illinois.

[kentuck]

9. You are correct....

It is 14 out of 18 they are calling "stable"..

[jmowreader]

11. What did they do, move everyone out of those 14?

[louis c]

8. The Shiites Want an Election

so Iraq can be like Iran.

The Iranians will finally win the Iraq-Iran War by using American blood and treasure.

What a dope we have for a President. 1,300 American lives, 10,000 injured, 50,000 Iraqi's dead, the alienation of scores of long standing allies and 200 billion dollars of American taxpayers' money so we can hand a victory to our enemy at no cost to him.

Nice strategy.