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Iraq Elections
fredster:
Cooter, people outside of the US do vote for the President. People with dual citizenship can vote, and they did vote.
--- Quote ---This number is not based on any sort of scientific poll, and I'm ashamed that our media keeps batting it around as if it were fact.
--- End quote ---
MrC, you amaze me with your Kreskin powers. I guess you AGAIN have ESP and know that this can't be right.
This is a great day for the world and we should all be so happy for the people of Iraq. Sure, it's a long and hard road ahead, but every long journey starts with a single step doesn't it?
ChadTower:
American men and women died so that these elections can happen. If 100% of Iraqis, both domestic and foreign, did not vote, I consider it at least a partial failure. AMERICANS DIED so they could have a choice of leaders and if they don't vote those AMERICANS DIED without justification.
Sigh. This is all such a f***cking mess. We went in there to find weapons and didn't find them... now we have to set up a democracy in a region that won't support it for people who don't deserve it.
I just wish the gov't and the media would step up and mention what this is really about... establishing a friendly, secure military foothold in the world's most Anti-US region.
mr.Curmudgeon:
--- Quote from: jened on January 30, 2005, 09:23:22 pm ---anyways no need for us to argue, the people have won, and the terrorists have lost!
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This is a wait and see situation...the vote, while symbolically a great sign, does not prove anyone has "won" or "lost". Bush has all his minions thinking in such simplistic terms and this is what I find most disturbing about his failure of leadership. He cannot, and will not manage reasonable expectations. His "pie-in-the-sky" rhetoric about "spreading freedom and liberty" comes off as shallow and vague. I for one, tend not to trust people that have already misled me. Call me crazy.
I do not wish to take away the joy felt by the citizenry of Iraq, however, I feel we'd do them a great diservice if we continued the "Rah! Rah!" rhetoric without working to conitnually head off the potential pitfalls they face in the quest toward stability. Your jumping the gun with the "won/lost" B.S. as it has no basis in reality as the situation has yet to be played out.
For example, there's precedent for my pessimism. It's important to keep in mind the below article was written 4 month before the Tet Offensive:
U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote (NYT 9/4/1967)
U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote :
Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror
by Peter Grose, Special to the New York Times (9/4/1967: p. 2)
WASHINGTON, Sept. 3-- United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.
According to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong.
The size of the popular vote and the inability of the Vietcong to destroy the election machinery were the two salient facts in a preliminary assessment of the nation election based on the incomplete returns reaching here.
Pending more detailed reports, neither the State Department nor the White House would comment on the balloting or the victory of the military candidates, Lieut. Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu, who was running for president, and Premier Nguyen Cao Ky, the candidate for vice president.
A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam. The election was the culmination of a constitutional development that began in January, 1966, to which President Johnson gave his personal commitment when he met Premier Ky and General Thieu, the chief of state, in Honolulu in February.
The purpose of the voting was to give legitimacy to the Saigon Government, which has been founded only on coups and power plays since November, 1963, when President Ngo Dinh Deim was overthrown by a military junta.
Few members of that junta are still around, most having been ousted or exiled in subsequent shifts of power.
Significance Not Diminished
The fact that the backing of the electorate has gone to the generals who have been ruling South Vietnam for the last two years does not, in the Administration's view, diminish the significance of the constitutional step that has been taken.
The hope here is that the new government will be able to maneuver with a confidence and legitimacy long lacking in South Vietnamese politics. That hope could have been dashed either by a small turnout, indicating widespread scorn or a lack of interest in constitutional development, or by the Vietcong's disruption of the balloting.
American officials had hoped for an 80 per cent turnout. That was the figure in the election in September for the Constituent Assembly. Seventy-eight per cent of the registered voters went to the polls in elections for local officials last spring.
Before the results of the presidential election started to come in, the American officials warned that the turnout might be less than 80 per cent because the polling place would be open for two or three hours less than in the election a year ago. The turnout of 83 per cent was a welcome surprise. The turnout in the 1964 United States Presidential election was 62 per cent.
Captured documents and interrogations indicated in the last week a serious concern among Vietcong leaders that a major effort would be required to render the election meaningless. This effort has not succeeded, judging from the reports from Saigon.
NYT. 9/4/1967: p. 2
ChadTower:
--- Quote from: mr.Curmudgeon on January 31, 2005, 10:54:44 am ---For example, here's a little history lesson for you.
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In return, here's a little advice for you: we don't need you to teach us things. That type of condescension is exactly why people around here are having trouble taking your posts seriously, even when they have valid points in them.
mr.Curmudgeon:
--- Quote from: fredster on January 31, 2005, 09:15:25 am ---Cooter, people outside of the US do vote for the President. People with dual citizenship can vote, and they did vote.
--- Quote ---This number is not based on any sort of scientific poll, and I'm ashamed that our media keeps batting it around as if it were fact.
--- End quote ---
MrC, you amaze me with your Kreskin powers. I guess you AGAIN have ESP and know that this can't be right.
--- End quote ---
No, it's just that my ESP tells me to wait until numbers are verified before slathering myself in them. It's not like we haven't seen inflated numbers before (ie: TONS of WMD!!! Ahhh, POUNDS of Yellowcake!!!)
--- Quote ---This is a great day for the world and we should all be so happy for the people of Iraq. Sure, it's a long and hard road ahead, but every long journey starts with a single step doesn't it?
--- End quote ---
Ok, sure...I was excited to see the purple thumbs too. But that doesn't mean I can't start thinking about tomorrow does it?
mrC