RE: http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,161168,00.html

The spin on this is enough to balance the article on your finger. Here's Ollie and partner in perspective, Frank Gaffney.... at least as I see them. The Wizard Of OZ was fooling people. Putin's not fooling anyone. The Wiz had imaginary power bestowed upon him by imaginary citizens of an imaginary world. Putin is real. Russia is real. And the U.S. really really lost an opportunity to become a highly invested partner in post-Iron Curtain Russia. Instead, we supported the likes of Osama Bin Laden in the killing of over 60,000 Russian troops during the '80's then decided to go imperial on the world's rear-end after that. While North's neoconservative brethren plotted to make the world of the 21st Century in it's corporate image, me thinks Putin was planning a little payback.

Another Nutty North propaganda push on behalf of his neocon masters, issued via entities like the Rendon group--Nutty's Swiss bank account could care less about what the issue is. Of course we know Nutty didn't actually write this screed.

Despite the fact brave Americans are dying or being wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan on a daily basis or that we're spending three times plus the economic stimulus Congress and the Bushies want to provide here in the states, instead we ship off amounts that rival the entire annual budgets of NASA, VA, etc.--combined to a bottomless sandpit where contractors outnumber our military forces---all of this is precisely the debate Nutty North and his masters want to avoid.


So the flavor this week is---Russia? Apparently an oil deal between American oil excecutives and the Russkies went sour, much like the hysteria arising over Venezuela's fellow nut job.

Of course the Bushie neocons can berate Putin about elections but offer up total silence for Paki Musharraf's suspension of elections and general dictatorship. Naturally, the fact Osama Bin Ladan and his band of fanatics reside peacefully in their Paki sanctuary illuminates the fallacy of that policy---but as we now know nobody amongst the Bushies really cares about crushing the true enemy, for it would get in the way of securing Iraqi oil and carrying the fight to (fill in the blank).

As a result I offer some excerpts and cites to illuminate the sheer buffoonary mindset of Nutty North, as we've installed exactly what in Iraq?

PS Great pix, BW!


http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42905-2003Jun27?language=printer

Occupation Forces Halt Elections Throughout Iraq
U.S. military commanders have ordered a halt to local elections and self-rule in provincial cities and towns across Iraq, choosing instead to install their own handpicked mayors and administrators, many of whom are former Iraqi military leaders.

The decision to deny Iraqis a direct role in selecting municipal governments is creating anger and resentment among aspiring leaders and ordinary citizens, who say the U.S.-led occupation forces are not making good on their promise to bring greater freedom and democracy to a country dominated for three decades by Saddam Hussein



http://www.williambowles.info/media/2005/media_deceit.html MEDIA ALERT: UNITY IN DECEIT – THE BRITISH MEDIA AND IRAQ’S ELECTION

“I suspect that [NDI and IRI] are trying to select individual leaders and organisations that are going to be very amenable to the US transnational project for Iraq.” (Robinson, quoted, Lisa Ashkenaz Croke and Brian Dominick, ‘Controversial U.S. Groups Operate Behind Scenes on Iraq Vote,’ www.newstandardnews.net, December 13, 2004) "However, the American writer Edward Herman, co-author with Frank Brodhead of the classic work, Demonstration Elections (South End Press, 1984), points out that when an occupying power sponsors an election “it is not free and democratic because it was imposed by an external force and did not come from demands from within”. (Email to David Edwards, January 15, 2005) Moreover, because the election is externally imposed, participation can be interpreted as an implicit approval of the occupation, a corrupting factor in the vote."



How Iraq’s Elections Set Back Democracy
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/02/opinion/02allawi.html

Editorial by Allawi, former Iraqi Prime Minister

Yet due largely to political pressure from the international community, the elections went ahead in January 2005, under a misguided “closed party list” system. Rather than choosing a specific candidate, voters across the country chose from among rival lists of candidates backed and organized by political parties. This system was entirely unsuitable given the security situation, the lack of accurate census figures, heavy intimidation from ethnic and religious militias, gross interventions by Iran, dismantled state institutions, and the use of religious symbols by parties to influence voters.

Accordingly, the vast majority of the electorate based their choices on sectarian and ethnic affiliations, not on genuine political platforms. Because many electoral lists weren’t made public until just before the voting, the competing candidates were simply unknown to ordinary Iraqis. This gave rise to our sectarian Parliament, controlled by party leaders rather than by the genuine representatives of the people. They have assembled a government unaccountable and unanswerable to its people.