Iraq Is A Mess
Call me crazy, but the 60% much ballyhooed and highly touted voter turnout number will turn out to be bunk. In today's all-live-all-the-time media, you can either get it accurate, or you can get it fast.
Morely Safer of 60 Minutes said it best and I paraphrase:
You see these embedded reporters speaking live, trying to comment and add valuable context. They can't. They can't comment, they don't know what the fuck happened! It just happened. The reporter should say, "your guess is as good as mine as to what it means."
Of course we don't know the Iraq election tallies yet, but the final result will be, shall we say, unexpected.
A senior government official in Baghdad, a US soldier and three members of a Kurdish political party have been killed in the latest attacks since the 30 January election.
The Shia voted because they were told to vote. The Sunnis didn't vote because they were told not to vote. Sounds like a free society waiting to happen to me!
According to Juan Cole:
The turnout in the largely Sunni Arab Salahuddin Province was so bad that the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance was the number one vote-getter there. That is like saying Kerry took Alabama! It could only happen if most Alabamans stayed home on election day.
You can get it accurate, or you can get it fast.
posted by dillon at 7:23 PM
3 Comments:
This morning on NPR they were talking about the vote and how there were some illegalities, but according to the Iraqi they spoke to, it wasn't anything to worry about.
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I wouldnt trust National Pulic Republican Radio too much anymore. They have been making more and more appearences on prwatch, mediamatters.org, etc. Look for Pacifica Radio. That's about all we got left. Unfortunately. Even Air America is under the big right bicep of Clear Channel. As far as an accurate record of how the Iraqi election really went down, I'd suggest TheRealIraq If you really want to be convinced. Take a look at the photo logs.
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