I have no idea what happened, though I did speak with a friend of Christian Parenti's last night, an Iraqi visiting from Baghdad, who thought it was the resistance trying to fuck with the elections.
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According to Juan Cole -- <http://www.juancole.com/ > -- Sunni guerrilla fighters are actively working to sabotage the election process.
Here's a recent blog entry from Professor Cole on this subject:
The geography of the attacks continues to suggest that the guerrillas are attempting to provoke Shiite on Sunni violence as a way of disrupting stability. Likewise, they are attempting to demonstrate that they can effectively torpedo any attempt to hold elections. If they can bomb so brazenly in the holy cities, where locals are watchful and where US troops had fought so recently to clear out the Mahdi Army, then they can bomb at will anywhere. The 9000 polling stations planned for January 30 cannot possibly be guarded from such attacks.
[...]
full at - <http://www.juancole.com/2004/12/ofac-reverses-censorship-policy.html >
Typically, two explanations are offered for insurgent violence which is described as being anti-election:
* Sunni fighters (and, it seems, a large enough percentage of the general Sunni component of the population) oppose elections because they're occurring during a violent occupation. This makes any elections a useless exercise serving only to make the Americans appear to be kindly shepherds of democracy.
* The inevitable outcome of any elections will be a Shia dominated government, overturning decades of Sunni rule and privilege.
Reasonable people can disagree on the accuracy of these analyses.
I must admit to being confused as to precisely what people - both left leaning Americans like Professor Cole and reportedly excited Iraqi Shia - expect the elections to accomplish.
Undoubtedly, religious and nationalist parties will do well and, using their mandate, will make uncomfortable demands on the Americans (for example, 'get out'). But since Washington will want to continue to exert (or try to exert) direct control over Baghdad and maintain a large garrison of troops in-country - troops who will inevitably find themselves in firefights, calling in artillery and air support and continuing to pulverize Iraqi lives and real estate - it's difficult to see how elections will produce the freedom of movement the hopeful long to achieve.
.d.
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