| Author | Message | | Alpha | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 11:24 pm Post subject: Hijacking Democracy in Iraq |
| Hijacking Democracy in Iraq
By Scott Ritter, AlterNet
Posted on March 23, 2005, Printed on March 25, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/21566/
The official results of the Jan. 30, 2005 elections are in. The Shi'a emerged as the big winners, grabbing 48 percent of the vote, followed by the Kurds who garnered 26 percent, and Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's coalition party netting a paltry 13 percent. Behind the scenes political infighting rages as the victorious political parties vie to get their candidates positioned in the new government. On the surface, this looks like the sometimes messy aftermath of democracy; squabbling, rhetoric, and posturing. The Iraqi elections have been embraced almost universally as a great victory for the forces of democracy, not only in Iraq, but throughout the entire Middle East. The fact, however, is that the Iraqi elections weren't about the free election of a government reflecting the will of the Iraqi people, but the carefully engineered selection of a government that would behave in a manner dictated by the United States. In Iraq, democracy was hijacked by the Americans.
Elections have been used in the past to cover up inherently non-democratic processes. Stalin had elections, as did Hitler. So did Saddam Hussein. The Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and Ba'athist Iraq were not burgeoning democracies, but totalitarian dictatorships. The point here is that elections don't bring democracy. The roots of any democracy lie in a people united in their desire to govern in accordance with a rule of law that guarantees the rights of all. Such people then create conditions in which elections can certify their desire by selecting those who will govern. This produces democracy. What occurred in Iraq on Jan. 30, 2005 was anything but such an expression of Iraqi national unity.
The Iraqi election was an American-brokered event: the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority set the terms of the election, and its date (not sooner than Dec. 31, 2004, but no later than Jan. 30, 2005) in its 'Law number 92,' signed into effect by former CPA chief Paul Bremer on May 31, 2004. The U.S. then had this act certified a week later by the Security Council of the United Nations, which passed resolution 1546, a Chapter VII resolution which carries the weight of international law and which endorsed the U.S.-dictated timetable for elections.
'Law number 92' is part of a larger body of Iraqi law, known as the 'Transitional Administrative Law', or TAL. The TAL was approved by the Interim Iraqi Governing Council on March 1, 2004; on June 1, the IIGC voted on an Annex to the TAL which certified as law all of the CPA's laws, regulations, orders and directives, regardless of the TAL. Iraq today is still governed under these conditions, which provide the U.S. occupiers in Iraq de facto control over what happens behind the scenes in the Iraqi Government. Iraq's 'democratic' elections were held under these conditions.
The main objective of the Iraqi election was to elect a national assembly which would then draft a new constitution by August 2005. This new constitution will be brought up to the national assembly for vote on Oct. 15, 2005. If the constitution is adopted, the new parliamentary elections would be held in December 2005 based on this constitution. If the constitution is rejected, then there will be a new national assembly election (a repeat performance of the Jan. 30 vote), and Iraqis will have another year to sort out their constitutional crisis.
Iraq's future rests on this issue of a new constitution. And herein lies the rub. It is the fervent wish of the Bush administration, and its ally, interim Prime Minister Alawi, that the new National Assembly rubber stamp the interim constitution that is already in place. This constitution contains language which precludes Iraq from becoming an Islamic Republic like Iran, where religious law (i.e., the Shar'ia), versus secular law, reigns supreme. Iraq's Shi'a majority have rejected this notion, and as such will not support the constitution as it currently exists.
The interim Iraqi constitution was dead on arrival. The Bush administration just hasn't accepted this fact. It had no chance of survival had the Shi'a won an outright majority of the vote in the Iraqi election. 'If it [i.e., the percentage of Shi'a votes] had been higher, the [Shi'a] slate would be seen with a lot more trepidation,' a senior U.S. State Department official said, once the official Iraqi election results were announced on Feb. 14. The problem is, there is good reason to believe that the percentage of votes for the Shi'a was higher – much higher. Well-placed sources in Iraq who were in a position to know have told me that the actual Shi'a vote was 56 percent. American intervention, in the form of a 'secret vote count' conducted behind closed doors and away from public scrutiny, produced the Feb. 14 result.
The lowering of the Shi'a vote re-engineered the post-election political landscape in Iraq dramatically. The goal of the U.S., in doing this, is either to guarantee the adoption of the U.S.-drafted interim constitution, or make sure that there are not enough votes to adopt any Shi'a re-write. If the U.S.-drafted Iraqi constitution prevails, the Bush administration would be comfortable with the secular nature of any Iraqi government it produces. If it fails, then the Bush administration would much rather continue to occupy Iraq under the current U.S.-written laws, than allow for the creation of a pro-Iranian theocracy. In any event, the Shi'a stand to lose.
Whether this re-engineering will succeed in the long run has yet to be seen. What is clear, however, is that many senior Shi'a know the real results that occurred on Jan. 30, and will not walk away from what they believe is their rightful destiny when it comes to governing of Iraq: a Shi'a controlled state, operating in accordance with Shar'ia law.
The post-election 'cooking' of the results in Iraq all but guarantees that the Shi'a of Iraq will rally together to secure that which they believe is rightfully theirs. This journey of 'historical self-realization' may very well ignite the kind of violent backlash among the Shi'a majority in Iraq that the U.S. has avoided to date. It could also complicate whatever strategies the Bush administration may be trying to implement regarding Iraq's neighbor to the east, Iran. But in any case, the American 'cooking' of the Iraqi election is, in the end, a defeat for democracy and the potential of democracy to effect real and meaningful change in the Middle East. The sad fact is that it is not so much that the people of the Middle East are incapable of democracy, but rather the United States is incapable of allowing genuine democracy to exist in the Middle East.
© 2005 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/21566/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jewish Neocons use 'Democracy' & 'Freedom' Propaganda to mask war for Israel agenda:
http://www.vdare.com/misc/macdonald_neoconservatism.htm | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 11:26 pm Post subject: Israel, U.S. begin military exercises eyeing Iran |
| From: MER - Mid-East Realities - MiddleEast.Org
Israel, U.S. begin military exercises eyeing Iran
Israeli Defense Forces and anti-aircraft units from the U.S. army
started
extensive joint air-defense exercises in Israel on Thursday.
Israeli security sources said that the operation is aimed at preparing
the
Jewish State to defend itself against possible Iranian aerial attacks.
The month-long operation, codenamed Juniper Cobra, will test the extent
of
coordination between U.S. and Israeli forces in several attack
scenarios.
It will also examine air defense systems at different heights, with
Israel's
Arrow II missile-killer system providing protection at great heights
and the
U.S.-made Patriot missiles at lower heights.
Israeli and U.S. officials described the exercise as a routine
operation.
"There is absolutely no connection with this exercise and any event in
the
region," U.S. Army spokeswoman Connie Summers told the U.S. military
newspaper
Stars and Stripes.
But Israeli security sources said that the operation is aimed at
tackling Iran's
most advanced Shahab-3 missiles, which they say could reach anywhere
inside
Israel.
"These war games always take a real enemy into consideration," said a
source.
"Last time, it was Iraq's Scud missiles. This time around, it's the
Iranian
Shahabs."
The Arrow is the only system capable of intercepting missiles at high
levels, a
capability considered crucial to prevent devastating fallout from
non-conventional warheads.
In the 1991 Gulf war, Iraq fired 39 Scuds with conventional warheads at
Israel,
killing one person but causing extensive damage in residential areas
mainly on
the Mediterranean coast.
Patriot missiles in Israel were not effective in intercepting the Scuds
at the
time but now they are more developed.
Experts estimate the Arrow's effectiveness at 95 percent but some say
that it
might not succeed in facing the Shahab-3s, which are four times faster
than the
Scuds.
Fears of military attacks between Israel and Iran have risen in recent
months.
Israel and the United States accuse Iran of covertly developing an
atomic
weapons program and want to refer its nuclear file to the UN Security
Council
for possible sanctions.
Both countries didn't rule out using force against Iran, which insists
that its
nuclear program is strictly for the peaceful generation of electricity.
The Islamic republic also insists that the Shahab would only be used as
a
deterrent, especially against Israel's atomic arsenal.
Iranian officials vowed to retaliate if the U.S. or Israel attack its
nuclear
facilities.
Last week, the chief of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards warned
that the
190,000 American forces based in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan will
be
targeted if his country is attacked. Aljazeera - 3/10/2005 ]
(2) Attacking Iran, by Ray McGovern, former Top CIA Analyst
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 08:59:32 -0800 From: "E. Pressler"
<epress@shuswap.net>
From: MER - Mid-East Realities - MiddleEast.Org
Attacking Iran: I Know It Sounds Crazy, But...
by Ray McGovern* Former Top CIA Analyst
Why Would Iran Want Nukes?
So why would Iran think it has to acquire nuclear weapons? Sen. Richard
Lugar,
chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was asked this on a
Sunday talk
show a few months ago. Apparently having a senior moment, he failed to
give the
normal answer. Instead, he replied, "Well, you know, Israel has..." At
that
point, he caught himself and abruptly stopped.
Recovering quickly and realizing that he could not just leave the word
"Israel"
hanging there, Lugar began again: "Well, Israel is alleged to have a
nuclear
capability."
Is alleged to have…? Lugar is chair of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee
and yet he doesn't know that Israel has, by most estimates, a major
nuclear
arsenal, consisting of several hundred nuclear weapons? (Mainstream
newspapers
are allergic to dwelling on this topic, but it is mentioned every now
and then,
usually buried in obscurity on an inside page.)
Just imagine how the Iranians and Syrians would react to Lugar's
disingenuousness. Small wonder our highest officials and lawmakers --
and Lugar,
remember, is one of the most decent among them -- are widely seen
abroad as
hypocritical. Our media, of course, ignore the hypocrisy. This is
standard
operating procedure when the word "Israel" is spoken in this or other
unflattering contexts. And the objections of those appealing for a more
balanced
approach are quashed.
If the truth be told, Iran fears Israel at least as much as Israel
fears the
internal security threat posed by the thugs supported by Tehran. Iran's
apprehension is partly fear that Israel (with at least tacit support
from the
Bush administration) will send its aircraft to bomb Iranian nuclear
facilities,
just as American-built Israeli bombers destroyed the Iraqi nuclear
reactor at
Osirak in 1981. As part of the current war of nerves, recent statements
by the
president and vice president can be read as giving a green light to
Israel to do
just that; while Israeli Air Force commander Major General Eliezer
Shakedi told
reporters on February 21 that Israel must be prepared for an air strike
on Iran
"in light of its nuclear activity."
US-Israel Nexus
The Iranians also remember how Israel was able to acquire and keep its
nuclear
technology. Much of it was stolen from the United States by spies for
Israel. As
early as the late-1950s, Washington knew Israel was building the bomb
and could
have aborted the project. Instead, American officials decided to turn a
blind
eye and let the Israelis go ahead. Now Israel's nuclear capability is
truly
formidable. Still, it is a fact of strategic life that a formidable
nuclear
arsenal can be deterred by a far more modest one, if an adversary has
the means
to deliver it. (Look at North Korea's success with, at best, a few
nuclear
weapons and questionable means of delivery in deterring the "sole
remaining
superpower in the world.") And Iran already has missiles with the range
to hit
Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Sharon has for some time appeared eager to
enlist
Washington's support for an early "pre-emptive" strike on Iran. Indeed,
American
defense officials have told reporters that visiting Israeli officials
have been
pressing the issue for the past year and a half. And the Israelis are
now
claiming publicly that Iran could have a nuclear weapon within six
months --
years earlier than the Defense Intelligence Agency estimate mentioned
above.
In the past, President Bush has chosen to dismiss unwelcome
intelligence
estimates as "guesses" -- especially when they threatened to complicate
decisions to implement the neoconservative agenda. It is worth noting
that
several of the leading neocons ? Richard Perle, chair of the Defense
Policy
Board (2001-03); Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy;
and David
Wurmser, Middle East adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney -- actually
wrote
policy papers for the Israeli government during the 1990s. They have
consistently had great difficulty distinguishing between the strategic
interests
of Israel and those of the US -- at least as they imagine them.
As for President Bush, over the past four years he has amply
demonstrated his
preference for the counsel of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who,
as Gen.
Scowcroft said publicly, has the president "wrapped around his little
finger."
(As Chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board
until he was
unceremoniously removed at the turn of the year, Scowcroft was in a
position to
know.) If Scowcroft is correct in also saying that the president has
been
"mesmerized" by Sharon, it seems possible that the Israelis already
have
successfully argued for an attack on Iran.
When "Regime Change" Meant Overthrow For Oil
To remember why the United States is no favorite in Tehran, one needs
to go back
at least to 1953 when the U.S. and Great Britain overthrew Iran's
democratically
elected Premier Mohammad Mossadeq as part of a plan to insure access to
Iranian
oil. They then emplaced the young Shah in power who, with his notorious
secret
police, proved second to none in cruelty. The Shah ruled from 1953 to
1979. Much
resentment can build up over a whole generation. His regime fell like a
house of
cards, when supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini rose up to do some regime
change of
their own.
Iranians also remember Washington's strong support for Saddam Hussein's
Iraq
after it decided to make war on Iran in 1980. U.S. support for Iraq
(which
included crucial intelligence support for the war and an implicit
condoning of
Saddam's use of chemical weapons) was perhaps the crucial factor in
staving off
an Iranian victory. Imagine then, the threat Iranians see, should the
Bush
administration succeed in establishing up to 14 permanent military
bases in
neighboring Iraq. Any Iranian can look at a map of the Middle East
(including
occupied Iraq) and conclude that this administration might indeed be
willing to
pay the necessary price in blood and treasure to influence what happens
to the
black gold under Iranian as well as Iraqi sands. And with four more
years to
play with, a lot can be done along those lines. The obvious question
is: How to
deter it? Well, once again, Iran can hardly be blind to the fact that a
small
nation like North Korea has so far deterred U.S. action by producing,
or at
least claiming to have produced, nuclear weapons.
Nuclear Is the Nub
The nuclear issue is indeed paramount, and we would do well to imagine
and craft
fresh approaches to the nub of the problem. As a start, I'll bet if you
made a
survey, only 20% of Americans would answer "yes" to the question, "Does
Israel
have nuclear weapons?" That is key, it seems to me, because at their
core
Americans are still fair-minded people.
On the other hand, I'll bet that 95% of the Iranian population would
answer, "Of
course Israel has nuclear weapons; that's why we Iranians need them" --
which
was, of course, the unmentionable calculation that Senator Lugar almost
conceded. "And we also need them," many Iranians would probably say,
"in order
to deter ‘the crazies' in Washington. It seems to be working for the
North
Koreans, who, after all, are the other remaining point on President
Bush's ‘axis
of evil.'"
The ideal approach would, of course, be to destroy all nuclear weapons
in the
world and ban them for the future, with a very intrusive global
inspection
regime to verify compliance. A total ban is worth holding up as an
ideal, and I
think we must. But this approach seems unlikely to bear fruit over the
next four
years. So what then?
A Nuclear-Free Middle East
How about a nuclear-free Middle East? Could the US make that happen? We
could if
we had moral clarity -- the underpinning necessary to bring it about.
Each time
this proposal is raised, the Syrians, for example, clap their hands in
feigned
joyful anticipation, saying, "Of course such a pact would include
Israel,
right?" The issue is then dropped from all discussion by U.S.
policymakers.
Required: not only moral clarity but also what Thomas Aquinas labeled
the
precondition for all virtue, courage. In this context, courage would
include a
refusal to be intimidated by inevitable charges of anti-Semitism.
The reality is that, except for Israel, the Middle East is nuclear
free. But the
discussion cannot stop there. It is not difficult to understand why the
first
leaders of Israel, with the Holocaust experience written indelibly on
their
hearts and minds, and feeling surrounded by perceived threats to the
fledgling
state's existence, wanted the bomb. And so, before the Syrians or
Iranians, for
example, get carried away with self-serving applause for the
nuclear-free Middle
East proposal, they will have to understand that for any such
negotiation to
succeed it must have as a concomitant aim the guarantee of an Israel
able to
live in peace and protect itself behind secure borders. That guarantee
has got
to be part of the deal.
That the obstacles to any such agreement are formidable is no excuse
not trying.
But the approach would have to be new and everything would have to be
on the
table. Persisting in a state of denial about Israel's nuclear weapons
is
dangerously shortsighted; it does nothing but aggravate fears among the
Arabs
and create further incentive for them to acquire nuclear weapons of
their own.
A sensible approach would also have to include a willingness to engage
the
Iranians directly, attempt to understand their perspective, and discern
what the
United States and Israel could do to alleviate their concerns.
Preaching to Iran and others about not acquiring nuclear weapons is,
indeed,
like the village drunk preaching sobriety -- the more so as our
government keeps
developing new genres of nuclear weapons and keeps looking the other
way as
Israel enhances its own nuclear arsenal. Not a pretty moral picture,
that.
Indeed, it reminds me of the Scripture passage about taking the plank
out of
your own eye before insisting that the speck be removed from another's.
Lessons from the Past...Like Mutual Deterrence
Has everyone forgotten that deterrence worked for some 40 years, while
for most
of those years the U.S. and the USSR had not by any means lost their
lust for
ever-enhanced nuclear weapons? The point is simply that, while engaging
the
Iranians bilaterally and searching for more imaginative nuclear-free
proposals,
the U.S. might adopt a more patient interim attitude regarding the
striving of
other nation states to acquire nuclear weapons -- bearing in mind that
the Bush
administration's policies of "preemption" and "regime change"
themselves create
powerful incentives for exactly such striving. As was the case with
Iraq two
years ago, there is no imminent Iranian strategic threat to Americans
-- or, in
reality, to anyone. Even if Iran acquired a nuclear capability, there
is no
reason to believe that it would risk a suicidal first strike on Israel.
That,
after all, is what mutual deterrence is all about; it works both ways.
It is nonetheless clear that the Israelis' sense of insecurity --
however
exaggerated it may seem to those of us thousands of miles away -- is
not
synthetic but real. The Sharon government appears to regard its nuclear
monopoly
in the region as the only effective "deterrence insurance" it can buy.
It is
determined to prevent its neighbors from acquiring the kind of
capability that
could infringe on the freedom it now enjoys to carry out military and
other
actions in the area. Government officials have said that Israel will
not let
Iran acquire a nuclear weapon; it would be folly to dismiss this as
bravado. The
Israelis have laid down a marker and mean to follow through -- unless
the Bush
administration assumes the attitude that "preemption" is an acceptable
course
for the United States but not for Israel. It seems unlikely that the
neoconservatives would take that line. Rather…
" Israel Is Our Ally."
Or so said our president before the cameras on February 17, 2005. But I
didn't
think we had a treaty of alliance with Israel; I don't remember the
Senate
approving one. Did I miss something?
Clearly, the longstanding U.S.-Israeli friendship and the ideals we
share
dictate continuing support for Israel's defense and security. It is
quite
another thing, though, to suggest the existence of formal treaty
obligations
that our country does not have. To all intents and purposes, our
policymakers --
from the president on down -- seem to speak and behave on the
assumption that we
do have such obligations toward Israel. A former colleague CIA analyst,
Michael
Scheuer, author of Imperial Hubris, has put it this way: "The Israelis
have
succeeded in lacing tight the ropes binding the American Gulliver to
Israel and
its policies."
An earlier American warned: " A passionate attachment of one nation for
another
produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation
facilitates the
illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common
interest
exists, infuses into one the enmities of the other, and betrays the
former into
participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate
inducement
or justification.... It also gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded
citizens,
who devote themselves to the favorite nation, facility to betray or
sacrifice
the interests of their own country." (George Washington, Farewell
Address, 1796)
In my view, our first president's words apply only too aptly to this
administration's lash-up with the Sharon government. As responsible
citizens we
need to overcome our timidity about addressing this issue, lest our
fellow
Americans continue to be denied important information neglected or
distorted in
our domesticated media.
2 March 2005. Ray McGovern served as a CIA analyst for 27 years -- from
the
administration of John F. Kennedy to that of George H. W. Bush. During
the early
1980s, he was one of the writers/editors of the President's Daily Brief
and
briefed it one-on-one to the president's most senior advisers. He also
chaired
National Intelligence Estimates. In January 2003, he and four former
colleagues
founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 6:00 pm Post subject: More on Scott Ritter by Robert Fisk |
| More on Scott Ritter by Robert Fisk
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=1574
America 'chasing phantoms' in Iraq says arms expert
by Robert Fisk; The Independent ; February 17, 2002
Scott Ritter, America's former top arms inspector in Iraq, has a neat phrase for Saddam's regime. The "phantom threat", he calls it. And he backs up his argument with an impressive assault on the credentials of Ahmed Chalabi, the head of Iraq's opposition in exile, whose bogus claims of defectors "proving" Iraq's connection to the 11 September mass murders are persuading Washington to put Saddam on America's next hit list.
Scott Ritter's damning evidence late last month should be taken seriously in the White House, even if Mr Ritter did once admit that he shared intelligence on the UN's Iraqi arms inspections with the Israelis. It was Mr Chalabi, he claimed, who promoted the Iraqi-Bin Laden connection by publicising the alleged meeting in Prague between an Iraqi intelligence agent and the soon-to-be 11 September suicide pilot Mohamed Atta. Mr Ritter says that the subject of their discussion - supposedly an attack on the anti-Saddam Radio Free Europe transmitter in Prague - was a far cry from the 11 September attacks and that the Czech government's reports on this supposed meeting were conflicting.
Far more seriously, Mr Ritter says that when he was arms inspector, he was tasked to liaise with Mr Chalabi and the "Iraqi National Congress" to gather intelligence information - "more flash than substance" as Mr Ritter puts it - from Mr Chalabi's defectors. Among the latter was a supposed engineer who helped to build a network of underground tunnels beneath Saddam's palaces, all packed with documents on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Mr Ritter's men dutifully went after the treasure trove of files. They found one drainage tunnel and no documents.
When Deputy Secretary of State Paul Wolfowitz needed a link between Iraq and the 11 September attacks, Mr Ritter says, Mr Chalabi discovered "defectors" who knew of the training of "Arab" hijackers by Iraqi intelligence at a facility near the Iraqi town of Salman Pak, complete with a commercial airliner that was used by would-be air pirates using only knives and - a lovely touch, this, in view of 11 September - practising only in "groups of five". The Salman Pak facility exists, Mr Ritter says, but its use as an al-Qa'ida training camp has never been substantiated.
The UN, Mr Ritter reveals, "stopped using Chalabi's information as a basis for conducting inspections once the tenuous nature of his sources and his dubious motivations became clear". Mr Chalabi's "sponsors", according to Mr Ritter in the Christian Science Monitor, are Mr Wolfowitz, former CIA director James Woolsey, and former Under Secretary of State Richard Perle, who rejoices in the nickname of "Prince of Darkness". | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
