Democracy in Iraq? Not Hardly.

The cornerstone of a true democracy is a free press. As of today in Iraq, a credible free press/media is nowhere to be found, according to veteran war correspondent and former SAIC employee Don North. The media is run heavy-handidly by Paul Bremer's CPA, dictating what CAN and CAN'T be covered. (Big surprise. :@@ You'd think the old Soviet Union was in charge. According to North, Iraqis do not find the IMN (Iraq Media Network) credible. Afterall, they've been fed propaganda for 35 years now. They should know it from a mile away. Only about 1 in 10 even bother with the IMN. Two out of three supposedly get their news from Al Jezeera or Al Arabiya. That's just great, considering they are known for presenting news with their own inherent bias.

If Bush wants so badly for a free and democratic Iraq, you'd think the first and best place to start that would be with the information business. You'd think..

Things have not gone the way they were supposed to in Iraq: Constant attacks, a constant flow of dead and wounded American soldiers, the inability of the CPA and military to restore order and infrastructure, the complete inability of the U.S. to win the hearts and minds of the people, rampant crime and corruption and supposed atrocities committed by our troops against civilians. PR-wise, the Iraq occupation is a complete disaster. There is no way Bremer and the boys are gonna let IMN be independent.

There is no democracy in Iraq. Only occupation.

To read Iraq: Project Frustration by Don North:

Iraq: Project Frustration
One Newsman's Take on How Things Went Wrong

By Don North
Special to TelevisionWeek

In the chill January days when Pentagon officials were mapping the blueprint for a new Iraq, a paper was circulated here in Washington proposing a free, impartial and independent Iraqi Media Network. The paper stated, "Whilst democracy requires a free press, at the same time it requires one that is accountable to the society and the individuals within it, which it serves."

It was a good plan. It would model IMN as a public broadcast network similar to PBS or the BBC, two of the most respected broadcasters in the world. So I joined a small group of American and Iraqi expatriate journalists who signed on to bring honest and professional radio and TV to Iraq after the fall of Baghdad. The Iraq Media Network went on the air with radio April 10 and television May 13. It was greeted with great anticipation by Iraqis, who expected that after 35 years of Saddam Hussein's self-serving propaganda, a new free and democratic media would be created that would make the new governing elements transparent and accountable and generate credible debate on the reconstruction of Iraq.
www.tvweek.com...

"the complete inability of the U.S. to win the hearts and minds of the people"

erm... excuse me? says who?

"There is no democracy in Iraq. Only occupation."

youre living in an absolute dream world. things like this take time.
i reackon you need to rethink ALOT of things....

The U.S. military has not remotely won the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. How could they? Our soldiers have accidentally or maybe not accidentally killed so many civilians, many Iraqis just plain hate Americans. The daily attacks by insurgents on Iraqis accused of being collaborators is taking its toll, too. It's impossible. The only way they'll win Iraqis over is if we restore security and infrastructure, allow them a free press, hand the power of governance over to them and end the occupation QUICKLY. Until those fundamentals are met, we don't have a prayer with Iraqis. It's sad, too, because Iraqis are a very progressive, enlightened people and once upon a time, they were quite friendly towards America.

Ok Genius,

How much time, you don't really hear about it but we are still occupying Afganistan, what's that almost 3 years now?

Originally posted by Bowser
Ok Genius,

How much time, you don't really hear about it but we are still occupying Afganistan, what's that almost 3 years now?

I didn't quite understand your question. Can you explain your meaning?

"How much time, you don't really hear about it but we are still occupying Afganistan, what's that almost 3 years now?"

3 years to sort out an entire country? i would think it would take alot more time than that!

You forget... It's about the Opium production now. Business is booming for the first time since the Taliban eradicated it. Plus there's always that pesky little problem with the Caspian Sea Pipeline. Gotta make it secure for the oil interests.

We're probably gonna be there for a long, long time.

GeniusSage: "
"the complete inability of the U.S. to win the hearts and minds of the people"

erm... excuse me? says who?"

Says the Vietnamese. The Koreans. ALL of South and Central America. 90% of Africa. Filipinos. Cubans.

You can't even win the hearts and minds of the AMERICAN PEOPLE, how do you expect to do it in a culture you have no idea about?

About Afghanistan: "3 years to sort out an entire country? i would think it would take alot more time than that!"

LOL! Define "sort out an entire country". Afghanistan is still being occupied with no end in sight. The Afghan government (headed by ex-oil man Karzai) is BARELY in control of all of Kabul. The rest of the country is run by warlords and heroin distribution has SKYROCKETED since the US invaded. So define "sort out".

We don't have a democracy here either....(it's a representative republic)...

Democracy doesn't really "fit" with their ways to be honest...and you can't shoehorn it...especially with such vastly different populations....(Shiites, Kurds, Sunnis, etc.)

Bush said he wants a D E M O C R A C Y !!!

And the SHRUB always gets what he wants!

"ALL of South and Central America."

ALL? erm.... some people DO support America in the Iraq War. what the hell?

"the majority" doesnt mean "all"

Bush says he wants Iraq to be a Democracy. It doesn't matter to him what the Shi'ites want, though. It doesn't matter what any Iraqi wants - unless they're connected to BushCo. Bush is a liar, straight up. It's his way or the highway. His caucus representatives are nothing more than puppets for the Bush administration. (Ok there might be a handful of legit reps., but for the most part? NOT.) I can't help but wonder just what exactly he and Bremer plan to do when civil war erupts? That'll be interesting.

Here's a good article about what's going on there now.

US Opposing True
Democratic Voting In Iraq
Give Iraqis The Election They Want
By Robert Scheer
WorkingForChange.com
1-21-4

Proving again that Martin Luther King Jr. had the right idea, the peaceful demonstrations by thousands of Iraqi Shiites demanding direct elections have been a far more effective challenge to the arrogance of the U.S. occupation than the months of guerrilla violence undertaken by a Sunni-led insurgency.
www.rense.com...

Iraq hates us so why should they listen to us?

The bottom line is, It is theirs to do with their country whatever they wish. We can try all we want to ram Bush's "Democracy" down their throats by the barrel of an M-16, but history has proven, it doesn't quite work out that way. I think we're headed for a civil war, unfortunately. But that's what happens when MORONS who have never served a day in their lives run foreign policy.

"We're probably gonna be there for a long, long time"

if that means the people are or will eventually be free, then let it happen. without occupation, the country will turn to # and this world wont get anywhere.

Here's an excellent analysis of what is going on right now with regard to the caucus idea in Iraq.

Why Do Iowans Like to Caucus But Iraqis Don't?

by Ivan Eland
Iowans seem pretty happy with their quadrennial caucuses. The results are now in and the 2004 presidential election season has been kicked off. Half a world away, however, Iraqi Shiites have launched massive demonstrations against the Bush administration�s plan for caucuses to elect an interim national assembly. Why do Iowans love what Iraqi Shiites hate?
antiwar.com...

Right now Iraq's Shi'ite cleric Ali Sistani has, in the words of Rene L. Gonzalez Berrios, Bush's balls in fist. If Bush chooses not to heed Sistani's desire regarding Democratic elections, he will crush them in front of the entire world. Bush has definitely gotten himself stuck between a rock and a hardplace. Maybe he should learn to read a newspaper and do a little of his own thinking. Here's an analysis article on the current situation.

Dilemmas of Colonialism: The Democracy Problem

Rene L. Gonzalez Berrios

01/21/04: (ICH) Being an empire is not so easy these days, as the Bush administration and its neoconservative supporters are beginning to see. The problem with empire-building in the modern age is that, in order to partake in it, you have to get by this silly, bothersome, internationally-accepted concept: democracy.

Let's examine the current Iraqi situation. Various arguments exist for justifying the war on Iraq, only a few were publicly stated. First came the argument that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (presumably the remnants of its 1980s, U.S. client-state days) were too terrible a national security threat for the United States, that the internationally-recognized logic of "pre-emption" was applicable (designed to only apply in cases in which a nation had foreknowledge of an immediately imminent attack on the part of another nation, like during Israel's Six Day War). The problem with this justifying theory was that the historical record did not support this theory. Common knowledge among foreign policy experts was that Iraq did not have the delivery systems (a.k.a. missiles) to be able to credibly threaten the United States. It barely had a weak deterrent force of limited small-range Scud missiles, which could possibly only threaten close neighbors. For the record, these neighbors (with the exception of Israel, who had vested interests in an American invasion of an enemy Arab state) were totally opposed to the WMD theory and found Iraq to be no threat to them (in fact, the record shows that most Arab countries were attempting a reconciliation with the radical Arab state). The WMD theory was weakened also by two equally important assertions: that the very WMD Iraq was accused of possessing were given by the United States and other powers during the 1980s and that the possession of WMDs (and the past history of using them). The first assertion illuminated the hypocrisy of accusing another country of possessing WMD that were perfectly acceptable for that nation to have when it was the pet of the United States against fundamentalist Iran in the 1980s. The other assertion illuminated the hypocrisy of demanding WMD removal on the grounds that Iraq had used them against civilians and opposing armies, when the accusing nation (the U.S.) had been the only country to detonate atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (also during a war) and killing vastly more civilians in those terrorist attacks (by the State Department definition). In essence, the question was: what gives the U.S. the right to invade another country for having and using WMD that the U.S. had accumulated as well and had used in its own history? The WMD logic just didn't make sense, except in the uncritical minds of a fearful American public. History would demand that we condemn American justifications of invading Iraq on WMD grounds as complete hypocritical nonsense, but then again, history has never been a popular subject in American society (to very clear consequences for its own society and the world).
the rest: www.informationclearinghouse.info...

Did anyone really expect democracy in Iraq? As Gazrok said, there must be a democratic process in America first, Bush isn't actually President if you remember. .

Originally posted by GeniusSage
"How much time, you don't really hear about it but we are still occupying Afganistan, what's that almost 3 years now?"

3 years to sort out an entire country? i would think it would take alot more time than that!

Indeed. We, here in America, are still trying to figure it out.