It was an awfully short experiment in Democracy in Iraq. Remember all the purple fingers at the State of the Union? Democracy was on the march. Forget weapons of mass destruction, Democracy became the rational for all the death and destruction. Well Democracy is dead in Iraq today. Murdered on the eve of the Constitutional referendum.
In case you missed it (which would be easy because I haven't seen it mentioned on TV) today the New York Times reported Election Change Seems to Ensure Iraqis' Charter.
Iraq's Shiite and Kurdish leaders quietly adopted new rules over the weekend that will make it virtually impossible for the constitution to fail in the coming national referendum.
So what did they do....
Under the new rules, the constitution will fail only if two-thirds of all registered voters - rather than two-thirds of all those actually casting ballots - reject it in at least three of the 18 provinces. [my emphasis]
What...?
Given that fewer than 60 percent of registered Iraqis voted in the January elections, the chances that two-thirds will both show up at the polls and vote against the document in three provinces would appear to be close to nil.
So, let me understand this, in order to reject the Constitution more people have to vote against it than could possibly show up to vote. Nice Democracy! This is certainly worth the lives of our young men and women, not to mention the total destruction of the country and the lives of about hundred thousand Iraqis. Democracy.
The rule change could prove a serious embarrassment to American officials in Iraq, who have spent recent weeks struggling to persuade Sunni Arabs to vote for the constitution and even trying to broker last-minute changes that would make it more palatable to them.
I'd sure hope so, but not if the CNN, MSNBC and Fox have nothing to say about it. I can already see the glitzy "Irag Votes" graphics.
And it gets better...
Other Shiite members of the assembly defended their action. They said that if only people who came to the polls were counted in the referendum, insurgent attacks could frighten away so many voters that the constitution could be rejected on the basis of a small, unrepresentative sample of voters.
"You should not violate the rights of the majority," Maryam Reyes, a member of the Shiite alliance that controls a majority of seats in the assembly, said in support of the measure.
Ms. Reyes said the assembly members had not changed election law, but only clarified the meaning of the word "voters" in the relevant passage. The legal passage in question states: "The general referendum will be successful and the draft constitution ratified if a majority of voters in Iraq approve and if two-thirds of voters in three or more governorates do not reject it."
Ms. Reyes was last seen coming out of a meeting with Karen Hughes who is in the region to help Iraqi women learn how we do things here in our American Democracy. Well I made that up, but geeze the swift boaters had nothing on this gal.
In their vote on Sunday, the Shiite and Kurdish members interpreted the law as follows: the constitution will pass if a majority of ballots are cast for it; it will fail if two-thirds of registered voters in three or more provinces vote against it. In other words, the lawmakers designated two different meanings for the word "voters" in one passage.
Karl Rove move over... these guys are good.
But seriously, even for this administration, this is amazing. Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Rice, all of you! People are dying in droves for your murderous lies. There were no weapons of mass destruction. There is no liberation. There is no Democracy.
Lies Lies Lies, and still they keep dying.
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Let's take a try at this form of Democracy. In the poll below it will be determined that Kossacks want the US out of Iraq only if 66% of all registered Kossacks vote yes. So we need about a million. If not, Kossacks have shown their support for a US Imperial Fascist Occupation for ever and ever. Happy voting...
