Where has all the democracy gone?

The BBC asked it's readers who should run Iraq? The answers are informative and entertaining. My two faborite excerpts:

The Iraqis will rule Iraq, BUT the framework will be from the West. The Shia leadership will want a "church" state similar to Iran... It would be like saying that Iraq can choose any government it wants including a new tyrannical dictatorship. I think not! The Shias must learn to compromise as part of a representative style democracy or federation.

Well, yes, that was from an American. The horror of allowing democracy to run so freely that the Iraqi's can choose any government they want! The horror! How about this one:

The British have the most experience creating the administrative and legal structures required in Iraq in its transition to a democracy. They have a great deal of colonial office experience to offer.

I assume this was suggested because that whole colonial thing worked out so well? We should set up an administration so that people, when they're ready, will need to violently overthrow it??

People are scary. Which is why democracy is also scary, sometimes. Because people with opinions like this vote. (You should check out the others. Some are...unique and interesting.)

*

SF locals: you know that guy who marches around with the sign, about impeaching presidents in all n zygotropic galaxies? He's been attending peace demonstrations all around the bay area. He even went out to the action at Chevron's headquarters in San Ramon: I saw him easing into the frame behing a television spokeshead.

I also saw his sign this morning. He's apparently been touched by the violence done to his fellow sign-carriers: his current message deals with police brutality.

*

The NY Times had a good article on troubles in Mosul on the 15th, where 10 or so civilians were killed by U.S. forces while demonstrating against the newly installed governor. To maintain order, the U.S. military is cruising around in armored vehicles and making noisy, low passes over the civilian areas, terrorizing the populace.

Read the end of this article, where a soldier notices that the locals don't appear to be greateful for the U.S. presence.

*

Right wingers here are always saying that this war is being fought to protect MY right to protest. What happens when a war of liberation winds up resulting in U.S. soldiers shooting the people they just liberated when THEY protest? I'm sure there's some rhetoric just waiting in the wings to cover this. I can't wait.

Break time!

This was written by a friend of a friend in his weblog.

Oh, and about pollsters (see above)? I heard an interview with the most respected pollster in my region. The interviewer asked him how they come up with such large support for the war - 67% was it? The pollster replied that they have four categories; strongly in support of the war, somewhat in support, somewhat oppose and strongly oppose. They take the first three categories together as supporting the war to some extent.

The interviewer couldn't quite get his question out. He tried to ask couldn't you just as easily group the last [three] as being opposed to the war to some extent.

The pollster did not respond.

[I'd provide a link to the exact entry, but blogspot is having indexing problems this month.]

"Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.

"...voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

-quote from Hermann Goering, Nazi war criminal (convicted at Nuremberg), 1946
[Additional information at snopes.]

*

From a BBC article entitled 'Banned weapons: where are they?' the adverse consequences of the U.S. & U.K. forces NOT finding weapons of mass destruction are discussed in detail.

But if they are not found there will be recriminations. The war was justified on the grounds that Iraq had not complied with UN resolutions to declare and destroy them....

The chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, remains open-minded about whether Iraq had such weapons, but is highly critical of Britain and the US. He accused them of planning the war "well in advance" and of "fabricating" evidence against Iraq.

The article debunks the false alarms, forged Nigerian documents, and soldier-panics that were all cleared up later. But this interesting:

So the United States and Britain have started to look for evidence on the ground.

They are currently unwilling to let the UN do the job.

Because their reputations and credibility about other alleged threats are on the line, of course.

*

I can't help but flinch: "Bush administration officials have been clear in saying that as the war winds down and they begin their campaign to bring political reform to Iraq and the Middle East, a critical step will be opening the region's markets to trade and investment. Okay, it makes me flinch and shudder.

It's not that the protectionist nations of the region couldn't use job growth and more diverse opportunities, because I'm sure they could. It's that this proposal is being put forward by someone who gave only his campaign donors a chance at bidding reconstruction projects of a sovereign nation. People who are so deeply engaged in graft should NOT be promoting their model in other nations!

Al Jazeera is the source of many fine items of reporting today. The top item, judging by how many times I've heard this discussed in other media today, is the U.S.' interest in having other debtors forgive Iraq's debts. What, debt relief for Iraq? How does that make sense when we won't give debt relief to countless impoverished countries who can't develop their resources due to staggering debt? Well...

By having Iraqi debt forgiven...US building costs may be met by Iraqi oil sales and the US taxpayer may not end up spending much more than they are already being asked to pay for the invasion so far....

"In exchange for debt relief, France, Germany, Russia and others are very likely to ask for contracts to rebuild the country and sell Iraqi oil, as well as a voice in economic policy," points out Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International and a former State Department official in the Carter Administration....

So far, the billions of dollars in contracts to rebuild Iraq are going to US companies. And at least initially, US officials are planning to make all decisions about Iraq's economy, with help from local advisers. If that doesn't change, it will be difficult to persuade other countries to drop their debts ....

Although it is not legally binding, the House of Representatives last week approved an amendment to bar French, Russian, German and Syrian companies from gaining any reconstruction contracts in postwar Iraq.

This is a very timely article. Through at least three other news sources today, I heard various U.S. spokespeople expressing concern that Iraq's oil wealth may not cover the cost of the huge contracts Bush has unilaterally let for rebuilding to his campaign donor contractors. The difference between those features and this one is that the full version of this article is aghast at the idea of U.S. oil exploitation, while the U.S. sources quoted all seemed to think it was a SWELL idea.

Ah, the magic of domestic bias!

Other features worthy of note in A-J today: will the US have to MAKE a smoking gun?, and an update on the international weekend protests (SF got an honorable mention!).

*

As a former librarian, my heart bleeds over not only the civilian lives lost, but over the destruction of the national library."The library, in central Baghdad, housed several rare volumes, including entire royal court records and files from the period when Iraq was part of the Ottoman Empire.... A nearby Islamic library has also gone in up in flames, he said, destroying valuable literature including one of the oldest surviving copies of the Koran."

Not to be unduly cynical, but this doesn't sound...right. While I have only lived through relatively minor disasters, such as the 'Great Quake of 1989' here in SF, I don't recall anyone rushing to burn down our libraries or loot and destroy our antiquities. (Which are largely from elswhere, admittedly, since the work of the ancient native peoples were not well preserved by those who came later.) It doesn't sound like something that local people DO. Even if invaded, I can't imagine burning the history of my own people.

I do recall that conquerors of old were eager to destroy the records of their conquests. The Spaniards, when they came to the New World, gained access to the elaborate written codexes of the Mayans, burned them, and then insisted that the locals were savages because they had no books. The 1940s German government rewrote its textbooks to eliminate the contributions of those they wished to exterminate. Domestically, ancient Egyptian kings periodically defaced the work of their predecessors, changing the names on carved monuments of great achievements to their own. But I don't recall EVER reading of people destroying their OWN records of their ancestors' OWN achievements.

[I've read allegations that the looters are not all 'local' to the towns they are looting. But this has not yet been fully explained.]

*

Am I supposed to be surprised that the Bush Administration has declared Syria to be a terrorist state? Well, no. The British, ever trying to balance the extremes of Rumsfeld & Co., had to publicly declare their sincere belief that Syria is not next 'on the list' of countries to invade. I can't wait for Rumsfeld's next undoing of THAT statement...

*

Last item for the night: the US has no plans to clean up depleted uranium residues it left in Iraq, stating that recent studies cancel out the negative studies from the previous Gulf War. "The UN Environment Programme study, published in March 2003, found DU in air and groundwater in Bosnia-Herzegovina seven years after the weapons were fired." But they're CERTAIN that doesn't cause health risks. Perhaps they didn't see the 60 Minutes expose I watched a few years ago, or the articles which said that DU manufacturers were using 'dirty' products to manufacture what CAN, at least theoretically, be a relatively "clean" form of radioactive ammunition.

Here's a discussion of a UK Gulf War veteran who has suffered a steep decline from being a marathon runner to having serious mobility problems:

Ray Bristow was tested in Canada for DU. He is open-minded about its role in his condition.

But he says: "I remained in Saudi Arabia throughout the war. I never once went into Iraq or Kuwait, where these munitions were used.

"But the tests showed, in layman's terms, that I have been exposed to over 100 times an individual's safe annual exposure to depleted uranium."

I didn't write Sunday: I was too busy biking 100 kilometers about 62 miles) in the rain for fun.


Late breaking clippings from Saturday: a BBC description of some weekend anti-war protests; photos reflecting the toll the war has taken on Iraqi civilians; local SF photographer Basetree's anti-war rally photos, including a moment of levity: [fresh] orange alert!