So, initial reactions to the Iraqi elections?

Apparently, the rough guess is that there is a 72% turnout, much higher than the desired goal of 50%.

The security measures they took seem to have worked out pretty well. While there were some suicide bombers, and some casualties (seems about 33 deaths and 70 wounded), by stopping all vehicular traffic they stopped the really BIG bombings. A single person just can't carry enough explosive to do anything really spectacular.

It could still fall apart, quite easily in fact; but I hope that this is the start of the end for the chaos and anarchy over there. It will be interesting to see what they choose to make their country into.

And, just a little snipe on the media.... XD

EDIT: removed the comic as it changed from what I originally posted.

Last edited: Sunday, January 30, 2005 at 10:04:37 PM

Live every day as if it's your last
and eventually it will be.

You'll be fully prepared

A friend of a friend is a reporter for Stars & Stripes, a military newspaper...he put me on his email list...here's the inside scoop:

>Hey everyone. Well, sorry for the concern-causing delay (judging by
>some of your notes) in emails, but things have been pretty busy for
>the past four days, as you can imagine. Let me see if I can give a
>quick recap and hit some of the post-election thoughts.
>
>Four days before the election, all of the US forces moved into and
>occupied the polling stations; in Ramadi, there were eight, four in
>each half (the Army patrols half the city, the Marines patrol the
>other half). They even set up one decoy polling station in each
>half, but the insurgents didn’t go for either.
>
>The first night, at 1 a.m., we (myself and a Getty Images photog
>named Joe Raedle, who I met before and is a great photographer, and
>guy) rolled into a train station in the city. The two guards were
>quickly subdued and, through the night, engineers put up rolls of
>concertina wire and cement barriers. By morning, the physical
>security was set up…and the insurgents started shooting. A few
>sniper shots, followed by a bunch of mortar rounds. Later in the day
>– or it might have been the next day…I dunno, it was a looong four
>days without much sleep – they attacked again. This time, the
>mortars hit right near the station, and an RPG was fired from the
>opposite side of the tracks. So they had a nice little gunbattle at
>the station, which was even more worrisome since most of the walls
>had lots of glass and the echoes of the gunshots through the station
>made everything seem much louder. It was not fun.
>
>It went that same way -- mostly with snipers and mortars -- for the
>next 24 hours or so at the station, which was pretty bad since there
>was a 200-yard open area between the station and any structure. Not
>good for hiding from incoming rounds. The next day, we went to a
>second polling station, which was in a school on the edge of town.
>That was the best set-up, as it was easily protected, had a lot of
>concrete walls in place, and wasn’t in the most dense part of the
>city. To protect it, they put Iraqi soldiers inside and had the
>American guys occupy houses all around the school. They literally
>went in at 1 am, told the residents to move out (“This is for the
>greater good of Iraq…and, um, we’ll pay you for anything we damage”)
>and used their rooftops at lookout points. We slept in one of these
>houses on the third night. Unfortunately, the guy took away all his
>carpets, so I once again had to sleep on a concrete floor (this
>would be a recurring theme for each of the four nights out).
>
>The fourth day we bumped over to another polling place, which was a
>school in the worst part of downtown. This is where we stayed for
>the actual vote…the original intention was to allow us to see all
>four polling stations in the area, but circumstances voided that
>pretty quickly. I suppose I should cut to the chase.
>
>The polls opened at 7 am; nobody showed up, so the election workers
>and the soldiers guarding the polls were the first to vote. By 8 am,
>the first two actual voters showed up, and literally at the exact
>moment their put their ballots in the box, the first explosion of
>the day went off. (Actually, there was a roadside bomb at 3 am that
>killed a soldier nearby.) It was kind of eerie. The Iraqi soldiers
>were convinced the first two voters were sent by insurgents to scout
>out the security preparations, which were this: rows of barbed wire;
>a metal detector; a blastproof wall; a second area for “pat-down”
>searches (one for women, one for men); a third metal detector area,
>and finally, the polling place.
>
>Anyway, by about 10 am, only 30 or so people had shown up. Only two
>were women, who allowed us to photograph them, which was good. There
>was a large crowd on the streets around the polling area, but nobody
>seemed interested in voting. Around noon, Joe and I sat on one of
>the concrete barriers, talking about how it looked like things would
>be very quiet. Naturally, at that moment, a huge bomb went off about
>200 meters from the polling station, destroying a Humvee (luckily,
>all the crew got out). So, that touched off a pretty big gunfight at
>the polling place. We kind of ran back and forth along a concrete
>wall, taking pictures of the US and Iraqi soldiers firing at
>anything out there. The crowds went home and stayed home. As you can
>imagine, nobody else showed up to vote after that. The polling
>station we were at had a total of about 75 voters, including the
>election workers and Iraqi soldiers inside.
>
>All told for Ramadi – a city of over 400,000 people – there were
>fewer than 1,000 votes cast. My math is bad…but what’s that? About
>one-quarter of one-percent? I’d love to have a dollar-per-vote
>breakdown of what this whole thing cost in Anbar Province. You could
>have personally had a U.S. Soldier escort each of the voters in
>Ramadi…it was almost a one-to-one ratio. I’m hearing that people are
>claiming an overall turnout rate of 70%…I just don’t believe that. I
>know Ramadi was one of the places not expected to vote, but our
>other reporters said the turnout was nowhere close to that. We had
>people in Baghdad and up north, around Tikrit. Maybe 50-60 percent
>is more accurate. Who knows for sure. I know many of the voters
>(well, the people who showed up) and election workers in Ramadi
>weren't sure how to read the ballots, but they wanted to vote
>anyway.
>
>So…it might take a few days for me to process this a bit more, but
>it seems the election was all-or-nothing. In the areas where people
>were expected to vote, they did. Where they were too scared, they
>did not. The bottom line, as I kind of realized today, is that it’s
>truly strange to try and hold an election in the middle of a war
>zone. Which Ramadi certainly is.
>
>I will not be sorry to get out of this place. Beginning tomorrow, I
>should be starting my way back home. I expect that to take a few
>days, and then hopefully I’ll get some downtime. I am thoroughly
>exhausted, especially after the past four days. The fighting in
>Ramadi is of the worst nature: it’s true urban combat, in which you
>never know where the next shot, grenade or bomb might strike. The
>soldiers there are battle weary. They’ve taken a lot of casualties,
>and according to them, close to 40 percent of their soldiers have
>been wounded in one way or another in the past four months.
>
>What’s next? Who knows. Certainly things are not going to magically
>chance just because the calendar flipped to Jan 31. Was it good the
>elections went ahead? Sure. But it’s a largely symbolic first step
>in a long road. I’m not sure what the media focus will now, or if
>Iraq will fall of the front pages in the coming weeks. The violence
>certainly will not abate anytime soon.
>
>Well, I’m a little too tired to think or type coherently anymore. In
>the next few days, as I make my way out of here, I’ll try and
>downsize some photos for you all and pass them along. Hopefully I’ll
>have figured a few things out by the time I get out of the country.
>Overall…I’d have to say this was just as hard as the first time
>around. But then, as I’ve probably said countless times now, what
>did I expect?
>
>All best. More soon,
>Joe

Interesting read above. I have two chaplain friends serving over there, cant wait to get a satellite call when things die down and see how it went.

Here are some more articles: ABC News

And...the BBC

As stink post reveals, time will tell what the outcome will be. I imagine a time of political positioning will now occur in the new assembly....

Last edited: Sunday, January 30, 2005 at 4:59:53 PM

Now that is a good email!

I wish more news was like that.

Last edited: Sunday, January 30, 2005 at 5:46:23 PM

Well, I can add you to his email list if you like...he's a great writer, and his perspective is astounding, and very well thought out. Funny, the official versions...what gets printed in the "stars and stripes" is usually just pabulum...and is indistinquishible from 99% of standard media coverage...

Coverage by Iraqi's: http://www.friendsofdemocracy.info/

A few blogs from Iraq:

Girl Blog from Iraq... Let's talk war, politics and occupation.

Imad Khadduri's Blog He's the Iraqi nuclear scientist who wrote the book"Iraq's Nuclear Mirage"

While I understand that the people are frustrated with the occupation and the insurgency, I find it freaking hilarious that the people are angry at the US for the lack of electricity and water. Who the **** do they think is bombing the facilities? That would be the insurgents that their neighbors (or the next county over or whatever) are aiding and abetting. Yet they get angry at us, not at the terrorists, or at the neighbors helping the terrorists. Hmmm.... It would be a lot easier to help them and provide them services if they'd help us help themselves.

People are strange sometimes. ;)

Before I get tagged as one of the sheep, I have always been skeptical of the reasons given for the invasion in the first place. However, it is also my personal opinion that it is a MOOT POINT. We did invade, and we did topple the government, and it is now our responsibility to help them put their house back in order. Leaving before the job is complete (or they ask us to go) would be a shirking of our duties and responsibilities to them, and I will not support that. If I am over at a neighbor's house, and I break something while I am there, it is my responsibility to attempt to repair or replace that item. Period. They have the option of refusing my help, but I must at least offer or try to help.

Also note the difference in the zones reported on by the various articles posted above. All the articles spoke fervently of their positions, and implied, whether implicitly or explicitly, that their zone was representative of the entire country. In Najaf and others all was peaceful and quiet, and had huge turnouts. In Ramadi, there was no turnout, and lots (or at least a fair bit) of violence.

I can believe that all the articles represented the truth. It will be interesting to see how the whole thing turns out. I would like to hope that it turns out for the best.

Hoping for the best and a speedy withdrawal...

@stink

^ Good word...

Last edited: Monday, January 31, 2005 at 5:19:00 AM

I agree. It would be nice to see the best possible option happen, that the Iraqi's take the election to heart and run with it, and the insurgency dissolves among public opinion, allowing them to rebuild a stable society, and allowing us to leave quickly.

My faith in human nature is such that I seriously doubt it will happen, but there is nothing wrong with hoping otherwise. ;)

Now, watta bout our election problems? I just read this report: http://www.uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/USCountVotes_Re_Mitofsky-Edison.pdf

From this website: http://www.uscountvotes.org]http://www.uscountvotes.org/]http://www.uscountvotes.org

Given the fiercely partisan flavor of our age, we need some safe-guards built into our election procedures...

We need assurances that our votes count...without some, I believe we're going to see more and more voter alienation and dwindling percentages of US voters...and more monkey business at the polls.

Ideas?

Last edited: Monday, January 31, 2005 at 4:25:09 PM

"The report's findings add one more study to a growing list that indicate our democracy was compromised on November 2nd by an assortment of un-democratic tactics," said Susan Truitt, President and Chief Counsel, CASE America. "Putting faith in partisan corporations to correctly count our vote `with secret proprietary software' was a catastrophic mistake. We should be spending less time worrying about bringing democracy to Iraq and more time working to ensure we practice it here at home."

U write a lot stink wow!!!!!!!! Slow down man