Will the JAN 30th Iraqi elections work?

Will the JAN 30 Iraqi elections work?

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Duty Honor Country

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The US went into Fallujah to weed out the insurgents so elections could be held in that city. The insurgents are basically waxed in that city, but violence has spread into other major cities in Iraq. Now some Sunni clerics are calling for a boycott of the elections.

With all this going on, can the JAN 30th elections work and bring democracy to Iraq?
 
Doody said:
The US went into Fallujah to weed out the insurgents so elections could be held in that city. The insurgents are basically waxed in that city, but violence has spread into other major cities in Iraq. Now some Sunni clerics are calling for a boycott of the elections.

With all this going on, can the JAN 30th elections work and bring democracy to Iraq?

With Iraq USA put it's hand to a big pile of warm fresh s**t.
 
You know what's interesting?
The resources of oil are usually in the South or in the North in the Kurdish area. The Sunni area of central Iraq doesn't have a whole lot. Want the Sunnis to be suckers? Cut Iraq into 3 different countries. The Sunnis will be proud owners of a land locked, oiless country, dependent highly on the Tigris and Euphrates which they will be 3rd hand users after Turkey and Kurdistan.

You could threaten it to gain their cooperation.
Then maybe they will realize the best way to get what they want is to participate in the voting so they can hold a few seats in their congress.
 
"The Sunni area of central Iraq doesn't have a whole lot. Want the Sunnis to be suckers? Cut Iraq into 3 different countries."

They want to be leaders in Iraq. They don't want wrong beliefed dogs to mess their business and occupy their land. They want it as much as you would want China to occupy USA and turn it to black hole of communism. Arabs don't want or need western democracy and they don't rispect it as a goverment. Turning arabs to western democracy is like to turn a capitalist to be a communist.

When US after all someday pulls it's troops out from Iraq, there will be a civil war between different groups to check out who is the boss of the sandbox. Then will a brand new Saddam raise to take over. Weaker groups who try to disagree, will be eliminated.
 
I know this is why the Sunnis don't want the elections to take place. It means they have less power than during Saddam's days.
By the way I don't like the PRC, so if they didn't want the US meddling in "their" affairs as much as I wanted the PRC to go to America and take over, we wouldn't have a problem.
It's a pattern I've seen consistent with Muslim countries (I've lived in two anyways and hear a lot about the others). The big man is the boss. Any democratically elected leader is immidiately handcuffed and rendered incapable due to corruption and other things. In the vacuum comes more localized, more radicalized groups that represent a specific group of people and not the whole country.
All in all, a very intolerant community. Where there is no tolerance, democracy is going to be a hard sell.

EuroSpike said:
"The Sunni area of central Iraq doesn't have a whole lot. Want the Sunnis to be suckers? Cut Iraq into 3 different countries."

They want to be leaders in Iraq. They don't want wrong beliefed dogs to mess their business and occupy their land. They want it as much as you would want China to occupy USA and turn it to black hole of communism. Arabs don't want or need western democracy and they don't rispect it as a goverment. Turning arabs to western democracy is like to turn a capitalist to be a communist.

When US after all someday pulls it's troops out from Iraq, there will be a civil war between different groups to check out who is the boss of the sandbox. Then will a brand new Saddam raise to take over. Weaker groups who try to disagree, will be eliminated.
 
It's a pattern I've seen consistent with Muslim countries (I've lived in two anyways and hear a lot about the others). The big man is the boss. Any democratically elected leader is immidiately handcuffed and rendered incapable due to corruption and other things. In the vacuum comes more localized, more radicalized groups that represent a specific group of people and not the whole country.
All in all, a very intolerant community. Where there is no tolerance, democracy is going to be a hard sell.

Yes. The big man is the boss and the big man is rispected. Democracy is not big man and not to be rispected. That is the local culture that is much different than ours. I haven't lived in any muslim country for my luck but couple of years ago i was in Afghanistan with the CIMIC company as an infantryman and i dealed some with those local people. I like the arab culture and manners a bit strange and even cruel. Don't wear sunglasses when talking to an arab, never show them bottom of your shoe and so on such of strange manners. Women are at the same line with dogs and religion and own family to belong seem to be very important things. Ok, thats their way of life and i rispect that.
 
Well I dont think the situation in Iraq would have been half as ugly as it is today if Europe also had supported the operation. But now when this Euorpean countrys are just standing in the dich on the left side of the road and gives the terrorists more water on there plows It can be hard. But I believe that Bush will straight things up down there with our without the support from Europe in a greater scale then they are apparticipating today. I have a gut feeling that more European countrys will have to take larger steps towards this war on terrorism then they are doing today. There will be something that triggers this and the gov of Europe cant play blind so much more, the reality will catch up to them too sooner or later.

Cheers:
Doc.S
:viking:
 
the_13th_redneck said:
I think the best answer to this poll would be: It HAS to work.

I agree with Redneck they will work because they have to work. But I feel it will stretch the military over there as well as fighting a war they would most likely have to provide security at the polling locations.

The times ahead are going to be tuff not only for Iraq but also for the countries with a stake in all of this.
 
A lot of countries have a stake in this, including Europe, and maybe Australia (though less so compared to Europe and the US).
If things fail in Iraq, the consequence could be a gigantic terrorist haven that can be used as a staging area for supporting groups overseas (training, command and control to an extent, supply etc.).
Right now the whole reason for needing to succeed in Iraq is totally different from when the US actually went in. Turned out to be wrong about the WMD etc. but right now that is no longer the point.
 
The questions posted are a bit too simplistic for one to respond with a set of equally simplistic answers to seriously make sense.

So without getting deep into it, my answer is NO.
 
I believe the elections will be successful with the help and cooperation of Iraq's neighbors and responsible nations of the world. The good thing is that there seem to be steps that are being taken toward that goal.

SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt - Twenty nations, including the United States, Iraq (news - web sites)'s neighbors and Arab countries opened a conference on Iraq on Monday, urging the government to meet with its opponents to get them to take part in the general elections.

The two-day international conference is expected to give strong backing to Iraq's war on insurgents and won't set a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S.-led multinational forces, according to a draft of its final statement, obtained by The Associated Press.

Iraq had asked Egypt to convene the conference, being held in the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheik, in a bid to bolster world support for its battle against insurgents and its plan to hold national elections. France and some Middle Eastern countries have pressed for a firm date for U.S.-led forces' departure,

The meeting brings together Iraq's neighbors, including Iran, plus Egypt and several other Arab countries, as well as China and regional bodies such as the Group of Eight, United Nations (news - web sites), European Union (news - web sites), Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm.../ap/20041122/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_conference_1
 
SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt - Twenty nations, including the United States, Iraq (news - web sites)'s neighbors and Arab countries opened a conference on Iraq on Monday, urging the government to meet with its opponents to get them to take part in the general elections.

If the government does not allow the opponents run for election, then it's quite obvious that the government wants to remain in power and made this hard fought freedom (at cost of Iraqi and American lives) of voting useless.
 
Please clarify your position. Do you or do you not think the Jan. 30th elections in Iraq will succeed?

If the government does not allow the opponents run for election, then it's quite obvious that the government wants to remain in power and made this hard fought freedom (at cost of Iraqi and American lives) of voting useless.
 
There will be an election. I have no doubt of that. Will it succede? The election yes. The elected have a hard row to hoe.
 
03USMC said:
There will be an election. I have no doubt of that. Will it succede? The election yes. The elected have a hard row to hoe.

I agree with that 03USMC. Anything worthwhile involves work. The end result will be worth all the effort.
 
The media have been going on for months now saying that "the whole country" is turmoil, "chaos involves the whole country", "things are getting a bit better in this or that city while the situation in the whole country is still ****ed up".
That's so much of a lie.
Since at least a year Iraq has been successfully stabilized by coalition troops, and the role of the Iraqi forces is growing.
Set aside all the so-called good news coming from Iraq (which the media deliberately ignore ), I want to point out that as Iraqi government says (yeah, the one recognized and legitimized by the UN ) only THREE out of eighteeen governorates ( Land Divisions 18 governorates, including: Al Anbar, Al Basrah, Al Muthanna, Al Qadisiyah, An Najaf, Arbil, As Sulaymaniyah, At Ta'mim, Babil, Baghdad, Dahuk, Dhi Qar, Diyala, Karbala', Maysan, Ninawa, Salah ad Din, and Wasit ) have not been totally taken under full control.
To date, Falluja (Al Anbar district) has been liberated and taken control of.
The areas out of gov't control make up part of the so called Sunni Triangle, with Baghdad, Baquba, Tikrit, Samarra, Falluja, Najaf, Ramadi, and all the funny cities we hear of on the news.
The rest of the country is stable and not in political or social unrest.
It's been like that for months now and the situation is getting way better.
Elections will work, in my opinion. I'm not exceedingly optimistic, since I know they also said US- backed Karzai's government was in control of the capital city Kabul only, while Afghani elections were a tremendous success anyways.
But the troops had had a full 3 yr time there before elections could be held.
I believe there'll be a lot of terrorist attacks and such. I believe elections will take place and attacks notwithstanding, they will work.
Some or many elected representatives will be murdered after elections, but if the Sunnis accept to join the government and the system, I'm hopeful Iraq will get its way to peace and stability.
 
DTop Wrote:
Please clarify your position. Do you or do you not think the Jan. 30th elections in Iraq will succeed?

An election will definetily take place. When things calm down a bit and the majority of Iraqis going to polls without being threatened, it will succeed.
 
Kane said:
DTop Wrote:
Please clarify your position. Do you or do you not think the Jan. 30th elections in Iraq will succeed?

An election will definetily take place. When things calm down a bit and the majority of Iraqis going to polls without being threatened, it will succeed.

Have you ever thought that if arabs wanted democracy as much as you would want to change western democracy to N-Korea stylish communism?
 
Have you ever thought that if arabs wanted democracy as much as you would want to change western democracy to N-Korea stylish communism?

First of all, I was questioning the notion of forcefully imposing a system against another nation's will. I was doing research on Arab Studies and their customs. To some extent, I think that most Arabs consider Western Democracy too ignorant and too self-centered.

But, what is most important is that we're not sure if the majority of Iraqi people were satisfied with the Ba'ath Party ruling over Iraq. George W. Bush Jr. and western media constantly mentions the Iraqi people living under terror and in desperate need of liberation, but I'm not persuaded by their opinions.

One thing to point out, the many Iraqis were celebrating the collapse of the Saddam Hussein's regime and welcomed American Democracy. But, what I think have degraded Iraq is by the prolonged occupation of U.S. troops in Iraq and foreign terrorist fighters swarming into Iraq spreading anti-US/anti-foreign messages.
 
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