JoeClarke.Net

THE ODD THING ABOUT BOB HERBERT OF THE NY TIMES IS THAT HE NOT ONLY POO-POOS THE IRAQ ELECTIONS, BUT HE ACCUSES THE IRAQI VOTERS OF BEING "UNINFORMED," AND HE ACCUSES BUSH OF NOT HAVING ANY REAL INTEREST IN IRAQ'S WELFARE. HOW STUPID!

BOB HERBERT, AS AN AFRICAN AMERICAN, IS DENIGRATING THE ELECTION IN IRAQ JUST AS HE AND HIS FELLOW LIBS DENIGRATED AMERICAN ELECTIONS BECAUSE OF THE PHONEY CRY OF "DISENFRANCHISEMENT." HAVE YOU NOTICED THAT HERBERT, JULIAN BOND, KOFI ANNAN, JESSE JACKSON ARE ALLOWED TO GET AWAY WITH MURDEROUS SLANDER AND INCOMPETENCE WITHOUT A CHALLENGE?

THESE HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE FREE RIDE OF UPPITYNESS ONLY BECAUSE THEY CAN FALSELY ACCUSE THEIR CRITICS OF RACISM WITH TOTAL IMPUNITY

BOB HERBERT'S BUSH BASH BELOW:

Posted on Tue, Feb. 01, 2005

Still, Iraqis suffer in occupation By Bob Herbert, New York Times columnist.
NEW YORK - You'd have to be pretty hardhearted not to be moved by the courage of the millions of Iraqis who insisted on turning out to vote Sunday despite the threat that they would be walking into mayhem and violent death at the polls.
At polling stations across the country there were women in veils holding the hands of children, and men on crutches, and people who had been maimed during the terrible years of Saddam Hussein, and old people. Among those lined up to vote in Baghdad was Samir Hassan, a 32-year-old man who lost a leg in the blast of a car bomb last year. He told a reporter, ``I would have crawled here if I had to.''
In a war with very few feel-good moments, Sunday's election would qualify as one. But as with any positive development in Iraq, this one was riddled with caveats. For one thing, dozens of people were, in fact, killed in attacks on Sunday. And shortly after the polls closed, a British military transport plane crashed northwest of Baghdad.
And we should keep in mind that despite the feelings of pride and accomplishment experienced by so many of the voters, Sunday's election was hardly a textbook example of democracy in action. A real democracy requires an informed electorate. What we saw Sunday was an uncommonly brave, but woefully uninformed, electorate.
Half or more of those who went to the polls believed they were voting for a president. They weren't. They were electing a transitional National Assembly that will have as its primary task the drafting of a constitution.
As John F. Burns put it in the New York Times on Sunday:
``Half a dozen candidates have been assassinated. As a result, the names of all others have not been made public; they were available in the last days of the campaign on Web sites inaccessible to most Iraqis, few of whom own computers.''
``Democracy,'' according to The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World, ``refers to a form of government in which, in contradistinction to monarchies and aristocracies, the people rule.'' That is not the case in Iraq and is not likely to be the case soon. In much of Iraq the people exist in a kind of hell on Earth, at the mercy of U.S. forces on the one hand and a variety of enraged insurgents on the other. Despite the pretty words coming out of the Bush administration, the goals of the United States and the goals of most ordinary Iraqis are not the same.
The desire of the United States, as embodied by the Bush administration, is to exercise as much control as possible over the Middle East and its crucial oil reserves. There is very little concern here about the plight of ordinary Iraqis, which is why the horrendous casualties being suffered by Iraqi civilians, including women and children, get so little attention.
What most ordinary Iraqis have been expressing, not surprisingly, is a desire for a reasonably decent quality of life. They are a long way from that. In large swaths of the country, death at the hands of insurgents seems always just moments away. It's also extremely easy for innocent Iraqis to get blown away by Americans. That can occur if drivers get too close -- or try to pass -- a U.S. military convoy. Or if confusion arising from language barriers, or ignorance of the rules, or nervousness results in an unfortunate move by a vehicle at a checkpoint. Or if someone is simply suspected, wrongly, of being an insurgent.
Crime in many areas is completely out of control. Kidnapping for ransom, including the kidnapping of children, is rampant. Carjackings are commonplace. Rape and murder are widespread.
In a country with the second-largest oil reserves in the world, drivers have to wait in line for hours at a time for gasoline. Electric power is available just a handful of hours a day. Unemployment rates are sky high. With many women destitute, prostitution is a growth industry.
Iraqis may have voted Sunday. But they live in occupied territory, and the occupiers have other things on their minds than the basic wishes of the Iraqi people. That's not democracy. That's a recipe for more war.