george wrote:
In article <5h80u0t4ti00lamcq26i01hrnqq54rm9vt@4ax.com>,
Harry Hope <rivrvu@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
From The Miami Herald, 1/8/05:
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/10595223.htm
Bush: The perfect candidate for . . . Iraq
BY PATT MORRISON
Some time around high noon EST, on Jan. 20, George W. Bush will be
sworn in for a second term as president, or as some of us think of
it,
``Dubya Dubya Too.''
Ten days after that, Iraqis will strap on their body armor and go
to
the polls to vote for leaders of their own.
More than 100 slates of candidates are in the running, but I know
whom
Iraq voters' choice should be.
Who better to govern Iraq than the man who broke it, bought it and
now
pledges to put it back together again: George W. Bush?
Like the Lone Ranger, Bush can make the claim to Americans that his
work here is done.
He has made his point:
The Bush family second-term curse has been broken.
It's all lame-duck downhill from here.
So why not share his gospel of freedom in person and double-down
democracy?
There are so many reasons, political and personal, that Bush should
be
the president of post-Hussein Iraq.
Iraq could suit Bush a lot better than the Beltway culture of
white-shoe lawyers and lobbyists and think-tank intellectuals.
The man who is pleased to ''see freedom on the march'' has earned
the
right to see it marching up close, from the reviewing stands of the
Baghdad parade ground.
The reasons for Bush to become president of Iraq:
----- The United States is already on Bush autopilot; his agenda is
safe in the hands of ***** Cheney, who wrote a lot of the playbook
anyway.
----- Karl Rove is getting bored and needs a real challenge, and
Iraqi
campaigning makes the rhetorical phrase ''political bloodletting''
real.
----- Bush could wear his ''mission accomplished'' flight suit all
the
time.
----- Iraq is running out of its own politicians.
----- Short campaigns mean less time to be caught in
tongue-twisting
contradictions.
----- Bush can institute his Social Security reforms without
carping
from the elderly voters' lobby or economists -- Iraqis may not live
long enough anyway.
----- It guarantees that the United States gets exactly the kind of
leadership it wants in Baghdad.
----- As a Texan, he'll fit right into a country that has more guns
than cars.
----- Iraq has a crying need for someone who knows the ``awl
bidness.''
----- The climate is more like Texas' than D.C.'s.
----- Many Iraqi people, too, speak English with an accent.
----- Unmarried daughters have to live at home and stay out of
trouble.
----- Thanks to Saddam Hussein's precedent, no problem defying
international treaties.
----- Bush could find himself signing a death warrant for Hussein,
the
guy who ``tried to kill my dad.''
----- No alcohol.
----- No term limits.
----- Iraqis love faith-based initiatives.
__________________________________________________________
And he won't even have to rig the election. It's already been
rigged.
Harry
and this just in;
The Iran Factor in Iraq's Vote the New York Times | Editor
Wednesday 05 January 2004
A lot could go wrong with Iraq's elections Jan. 30. But one fear
that
seems misplaced is that the two main Iraqi Shiite parties,
which are likely to be the biggest winners, would take orders from
Iran's radical Shiite ayatollahs, imposing pro-Iranian policies on
Baghdad or establishing an Iraqi Shiite theocracy.Tt's true that both
of
these parties, the Dawa Islamic Party and the Supreme Council for
the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (known as Sciri), have strong
historical
and personal
links with Iran and its leadership. But their politics, aspirations
and
main constituencies
are now firmly rooted in Iraq. If these parties come to power as part
of
a national Iraqi
government, with broad support from all major
population groups, their independence from Iran
seems assured. That independence will be harder
to preserve if the January vote splits Iraq
between a self-governing but weak Shiite and
Kurdish zone and a Sunni region with continuing, violent insurrection
Sciri and Dawa are the dominant parties of
the United Iraqi Alliance, a coalition of
mainly Shiite parties running as a joint slate
in the January election. Even with high voter
turnout in Sunni areas, these parties are
expected to do well because 60 percent of
Iraqis are Shiites. With reduced Sunni participation, they are likely
to
do even better.
Both parties fell under strong Iranian
influence when Saddam Hussein was ruthlessly
persecuting Iraq's Shiite majority and
assassinating its main political and religious
leaders. Their leaders received sanctuary and
money from Iran. But many of the new
constituents they are courting have bitter
memories of Iran, dating to the suffering of
the Iran-Iraq war. And Iran's corrupt,
autocratic and economically floundering
clerical dictatorship is not very popular in
Iran right now, let alone Iraq. Iraq's leading
Shiite ayatollah, Ali al-Sistani, has
repeatedly rejected the Iranian political model.
The real threat looming over the January
elections comes from the continuing alienation
of most of Iraq's Sunni minority. This extends
well beyond the terrorists trying to intimidate
election workers or the die-hards unable to
accept majority rule. The military actions in
Falluja and Mosul this fall seem to have
deepened it, and it now embraces almost the
entire Sunni community. The January election
can begin to address this problem only if large
portions of the Sunni population accept its
results. Otherwise, the gravest dangers facing
Iraq after Jan. 30 will not come from Iran's
plotting ayatollahs, but from Iraq's own disaffected Sunnis.
http://www.truthout.org/
<g.
you can't fool all of the people , all of the time.
The only legacy George W. Bush will leave to the Iraqi people, at
tremendous cost to OUR treasure and blood, is a freakin' CIVIL WAR.
What a waste. What an *****.
.
