They're not going to let me cheat and surpress the people and keep them in the 11th century.
Posted on 01/29/2005 4:54:47 PM PST by Stultis
Arabs Say Iraq Vote Gives Democracy a Bad Name
Fri Jan 28, 2005 08:52 AM ET
By Tom Perry
CAIRO (Reuters) - President Bush sees Sunday's election in Iraq as a beacon for freedom in the Middle East, but Arab reformers say the poll will set back their cause.
Arab human rights activists say the Iraqi election is deeply flawed and will give democracy a bad name. They say violence and the prospect of a Sunni Arab boycott will undermine the poll. Many Arabs, already suspicious of U.S. intentions in Iraq, are also dismissing the vote's credibility because of the presence of the 150,000 U.S. troops there.
"The influence of the elections for us as democrats is disastrous," Syrian human rights activist Haytham Manna told Reuters from Paris. "When you marginalize wide sections of society from the political process ... this is not democracy."
"With this example, all the Arab extremists will say to us: 'You democrats, go to hell, because you haven't been able to solve our problems with your democracy and elections'," said Manna, who left Syria in 1978 as a political exile.
Some Iraqi Sunni Arab groups are boycotting the election, saying it cannot be free and fair because of the U.S. military presence and daily bloodshed in Sunni heartlands.
The prospect that majority Shi'ites and minority Kurds will dominate Iraq's first parliamentary election since Saddam Hussein fell in April 2003 has fueled fears of communal strife.
"If the U.S. really sees the Iraqi elections as a step to usher in democracy, Arabs don't need it because it would be a leap into more bloodshed and chaos," said Mokhtar Trifi, head of Tunisia's only independent human rights group.
Many Arabs think elections held under U.S. occupation can only produce a government similar to the U.S.-backed interim government, which they view as an American puppet.
DEMOCRATIC CHARADES
"The elections depict democracy as if it is connected to the idea of submission to the American occupier," said Abdel Halim Qandil, who is campaigning against an extension of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's 23-year-old rule.
"The idea of democracy will lose its reputation in the Arab world entirely," Qandil said, comparing the Iraqi election with 20th-century polls held in Egypt under British occupation. "Democratic charades of this type were going on then," he said.
Some Arab dissidents also say violence in Iraq has given Arab governments an excuse to deflect pressure from the Bush administration for democratic reform across the Middle East.
Egyptian civil rights activist Saadeddin Ibrahim said the chaos in Iraq had allowed the Egypt government to discredit the U.S. project at home. Cairo was also warning Washington that political reform in Egypt might unleash extremism.
Rights campaigners say U.S. abuse of Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib jail near Baghdad had also put back the cause of human rights in Arab states accused of torturing prisoners.
Manaa, spokesman for the Arab Commission for Human Rights, said cases of torture in Arab jails had increased since the Abu Ghraib scandal. U.S. soldiers involved have faced court martial.
"Arab governments say: 'This is the reform carried out by the one who calls on us to reform,"' Manaa said.
Saudi academic Madawi al-Rasheed said the Abu Ghraib scandal coupled with air strikes on Falluja, which the U.S. military said was a stronghold for Sunni insurgents, had lost America the support of its natural Arab allies in pushing for democracy.
"The educated, liberal classes, they cannot possibly have positive views vis-a-vis America when these things are going on," she told Reuters from London.
But Rasheed said if democracy did take root in Iraq it would be an example to other Arabs, a view echoed by Shafiq Ghabra, president of the American University of Kuwait.
"Today there are few places in the Arab world where you can have this dynamic expression of ideas, lists, candidates," he said. (Additional reporting by Lamine Ghanmi in Tunis and Noora Kassem in Kuwait)
By Tom Perry, Los Angeles Times | January 9, 2005
FALLUJAH, Iraq -- As he navigated his Humvee through rubble-strewn streets, Lance Corporal Sunshine Yubeta articulated a question that is key to the Marines' mission here.
"I wonder," said the 23-year-old from Madras, Ore., nodding toward several sullen men on a corner, "if they hate us or like us."...
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/01/09/in_fallujah_marines_try_a_new_tactic/
It looks like the same usual crap out of Perry.
Awwwww. My heart swells at the selfless compassion exhibited by these Arab terr.....errrr....human rights activists.
Think of Islam as a diode.
They're not going to let me cheat and surpress the people and keep them in the 11th century.
"The influence of the elections for us as democrats is disastrous," Syrian human rights activist Haytham Manna told Reuters from Paris. "When you marginalize wide sections of society from the political process ... this is not democracy."
yeah.... I couldn't get past the first sentence that said "Arab reformers".....like who the hell are they?.. Those who sit by the sideline not doing a damned thing except whining when someone else trys to do good in that miserable part of the world....
Reuters and the AP drink from the same cup of blind liberal ignorance......
Too late for the oppressors. Even if the turnout is low, even we leave tomorrow, even there is civil war and prolonged violence the die is cast. Once tasted the quest for freedom, even though rocky, is never ending.
Reuters is so pathetic.
If the Sunnis boycott that's their problem. Who ever heard of a group boycotting an election invalidating its legitimacy? I can think of a lot of people I would like to boycott our next election!
Interesting double standard there isn't it? Mad Mo and the Moon Worshippers can't stand competition!
Did I or did I not (maybe I dreamt it?) read somewhere that Reuters was owned by arabs?
Sounds like a research project coming up.
Dear Sunnis: There is still time to vote and participate in your country's governance. You can't scream "marginalization" when you had your chance.....
<< "They say violence and the prospect of a Sunni Arab boycott will undermine the poll." >>
If the apartheid-promoting Afrikaaner Nationalists had boycotted the South Africa elections that brought the ANC and Mandela to office -- would Rooters have called that "undermining the poll?"
I think not!
I agree. It is like the confederates in the US civil war starting the war and then stating all elections across the country (in 1864 and during reconstruction) were illegitimate until they violence stopped. The Sunnis have some nerve ... they are complaining they will not participate until the violence stops, and they are the ones causing the violence.
Arab human rights activists say the Iraqi election is deeply flawed and will give democracy a bad name. They say violence and the prospect of a Sunni Arab boycott will undermine the poll. Many Arabs, already suspicious of U.S. intentions in Iraq, are also dismissing the vote's credibility because of the presence of the 150,000 U.S. troops there.
Sounds like Tom Perry might be a screen name for Achmed al-Tikriti.
These Arab critics are just opponents of democracy, indulging in wishful thinking.
btt with no comment
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