Bush supporters' aftermath thread

Edit= added JP Too :wink:

Nimh wrote:

Oh yeah there was this whole how Iraq attacked America on 9/11 thing huh

You surely can't find any place anywhere on any forum or otherwise that I ever suggested such a thing. You can find plenty of evidence that the USA was viciously attacked. I will refer you to what 'the war against terrorism' encompasses for the rest. Or are you just generally pretending you don't understand?

You are mixing your metaphors my friend. [..] We have done and are doing our deeds:
1) As self defense retaliation against a hostile attack
2) To rid the world of a perceived unacceptable danger

nimh wrote:

Finding that 98% of the population he claims to have liberated has already lost faith in him is one way to do so.

That is the most dishonest, useless statistic there is and you know it. Show me a study that says 98% want Saddam back. Show me one that says 98% want us to leave right this minute. I don't know what you're upset about, but your rhetoric today is very uncharacteristic.

the main findings of the poll, which was commissioned by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) last month and which was leaked yesterday, reveal that only 2 per cent of the Iraqis polled in mid-May see coalition troops as liberators, while 92 per cent said they were occupiers.

VOTING FEVER!

Voting fever takes hold of a people finally free to choose
From Richard Beeston in Baghdad
There is a palpable sense that the country is entering a new era



FOR decades, voting in Iraq meant taking part in a national exercise of state-enforced adulation, as 99 per cent of the electorate would dutifully turn out to tick the box beside the name Saddam Hussein.



Yesterday the contrast could not have been starker, as the campaign for Sunday's elections picked up pace and voters were presented with a dizzying selection of dozens of candidates and parties.

Notwithstanding insurgent terror aimed at wrecking the polls, there is finally a palpable sense in Baghdad, and other Iraqi cities, that the country is entering a new era.

At the Babylon Hotel tribal sheikhs in long gowns and Arab headdress gathered to hear politicians extol the virtues of Iyad Allawi, the interim Prime Minister, who was being touted as the only man with the strength and will to solve Iraq's numerous problems.

Across town Kurdish voters were treated to large slices of chocolate cake, folk dancing and poetry readings praising democracy and reminding them of their duty to their nation.

Elsewhere street urchins were discovering that democracy can pay. They have been hired en masse to put up posters and billboards on every wall space available and probably paid a little extra to tear down the slogans of rival politicians.

Some of the campaigning methods are fairly crude.

One boy said that the police had given him a stack of posters of the Prime Minister and ordered him to put them up around his neighbourhood. The Iraqi Electoral Commission has received complaints that some parties have warned voters that they would "go to Hell" unless they supported their candidates. Others have used photographs of influential religious leaders, such as Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, in their campaign posters even though the Shia cleric is not running in the elections.

While voters may be confused by the experiment in democracy, they cannot complain about a lack of choice. There is a Communist Party, with the message of a "free country and a happy people", a monarchist movement pledging the restoration of the Hashemite dynasty, and even a party under the banner of Abdul Karim al-Qassim, the former brigadier-general who seized power in a military coup.

Voters from the Sunni population, many of whom may boycott the vote, will find themselves well represented should they visit the polling stations. Ghazi al-Yawer, the President, Adnan Pachachi, Iraq's elder statesman, and even the Islamic Iraq Party, which has officially pulled out of the vote, will present party lists on polling day.

Political pundits agree that three of the coalition lists will dominate Sunday's polls. The United Iraqi Alliance, a loose collection of more than 100 parties supported by Ayatollah al-Sistani, is expected to win as much as 40 per cent of the vote, drawing on the support of the majority Shia population in central and southern Iraq and Sadr City, in Baghdad. Not only do Shias believe that they will finally win power after centuries as second-class citizens, they have also been told that voting is a religious duty. In spite of the strong religious backing, the party has been at pains to emphasise that it supports secular politics and rejects any notion of an Iranian-style theocracy. To make the point that it is not bound to Islamic doctrine, it put up posters of a beautiful girl with long, flowing black hair that looked more like an advertisement for shampoo.

The second-strongest coalition is the Kurdish Alliance, which could win up to 20 per cent of the vote. It is an amalgam of the two main movements, the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Both groups want to protect the autonomy they have achieved over the past decade in northern Iraq and ensure that Kurds have a powerful voice in central government. They could well emerge as key coalition partners in any future government.

The fate of Dr Allawi's Iraqi List is less clear. Condemned by critics as a puppet of America, and the man who authorised US forces to put down a rebellion in Najaf last year and storm the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, he nonetheless commands respect among many Iraqis who believe that the country needs a hard man to restore authority. The rest of the seats are likely to be shared by several smaller parties.

One thing not in doubt is that the elections will go ahead and that there will be a result sometime next month. "I think that despite everything, many Iraqis will vote on Sunday," Fadel Alfatlwi, the head of the Iraqi Institute for Peace and an independent candidate, said. "With the occupation and all the horrible things that have happened, people dream that they will be wealthy and happy. That dream starts with the election."

Blatham did you know that if you close your eyes really tight and then stick the tip of your finger into the corner of the eye you can watch cartoons?

"If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war... our children will sing great songs about us years from now."

-- Richard Perle

(insert Mr. Cherry Kool-Aid emoticon here)