"They're coming for me Next!"Say the other Arab Nations "GW said so in his inauguration speech!"
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)
"They're not going to let me cheat and surpress the people and keep them in the 11th century."
That and your graphic is Perfect!!
"They're coming for me Next!"Say the other Arab Nations "GW said so in his inauguration speech!"
LOL!!! Let Freedom Ring!!!!
"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.
WHaaaa. We're not free to run our bloody campaign to harass and intimidate any more. Also the piece has the democrats being disenfranchised again.
Why? The sunnis are a small minority. According to the numbers I have seen, this would be like Homosexuals sitting out the 2004 elections. Big freakin deal.
However Reuters offers this as a news piece
Why am I not suprised.
I know they're French, but as to who actually owns them I can't say.
Syria is such a great example of Democracy right? This has to be a joke.
I am waiting for Reuters to run an informative, useful retrospective on military uniforms in Hitler's SS.
I believe that arab muslims give humanity a bad name.
Neener! Neener!
Guess your crystal ball isn't working on the Muslim holy day, Msr. Tom Perrier....
"Salaheddine Sidhoum"
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Salaheddine+Sidhoum%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&tab=nw&sa=N
"Dr. Muhamed Mugraby"
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22Dr.+Muhamed+Mugraby%22&btnG=Search
"Omar Karsou"
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22Omar+Karsou%22&btnG=Search
I've got more if you want.
"Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody's power, that is not easy."
Aristotle
"They who judge by the group are peawits"
Sgt. Killrain
The Killer Angels
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.
In short, they haven't a clue what really happened and are pronouncing it a failure out of...well, why, really? Reuters itself has a political bias so steep they wouldn't recognize a straight story if one happened along, and these spokespeople didn't include a single, solitary Iraqi voter who was actually there. Not one. This may be a lot of things, but "reporting" it is not.
In point of fact, the activists quoted have a vested interest in the election failing as well - it threatens their own very lucrative and long-standing con game. It is these people whose mighty efforts have resulted in a democratic government in precisely no country in the area, not one, not ever. Nor will they. That would require giving up the suites in Paris and the adulation of such of the international community as Reuters represents. They deserve one another.
Excellent point.
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