[Marxism] Int'l wave of prowar, pro-occupation propaganda re elections: "This proves that we are now free"

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Note this:  "In Ramadi, U.S. troops coaxed voters with loudspeakers,
preaching the importance of every ballot."

We are going to have to be answering a worldwide, well-organized, and
well-prepared wave of propaganda proclaiming these elections a triumph
of democracy. All the stops of electoralist, parliamentary fantasizing
are going to be pulled out.
This is freedom. This is democracy.  This is self-determination. As
Allawi put it, summarizing the Big Lie of the whole process: "This is
the first time the Iraqis will determine their destiny."

Eventually, the struggle itself will clear away a lot of this fog, as
tends to happen in the wake of almost every "most important election in
our nation's history."

For a while, though, we are going to have some work to do countering the
lies, and explaining that this election is not turning over to control
of Iraq to Shias, Kurds, or anybody else but the occupying power.  For
Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal, and that means Out Now!
Fred Feldman


Polling officially ends in Iraq:


 Photo: Toby Melville/AP
Iraqi security forces guard the entrance to a polling station in the Al
Saei district of Basra, in southern Iraq, on Saturday.


>From Toronto Globe and Mail
Associated Press


UPDATED AT 9:41 AM EST  Sunday, Jan 30, 2005


Baghdad - Polling stations officially closed Sunday evening in the Iraqi
elections, but the elecion commission said anyone still in line would be
allowed to vote.

Election spokesman Farid Ayar said that as of 5 p.m., police determined
who was in line at that moment. They would be permitted to vote.
Otherwise, the stations would be closed.

Earlier, Iraqis danced and clapped with joy as they voted in their
country's first free election in a half-century, defying insurgents who
launched eight suicide bombings and mortar strikes at polling stations.
The attacks killed at least 36 people.

After a slow start, men and women in flowing black abayas - often
holding babies - formed long lines, although there were pockets of Iraq
where the streets and polling stations were deserted. Iraqis prohibited
from using private cars walked streets crowded in a few places nearly
shoulder-to-shoulder with voters, hitched rides on military buses and
trucks, and some even carried the elderly in their arms.

"This is democracy," said Karfia Abbasi, holding up a thumb stained with
purple ink to prove she had voted.

Officials said turnout appeared higher than expected, although it was
too soon to tell for sure. Iraqi officials have predicted that up to 8
million of the 14 million voters - just over 57 per cent - would
participate.

In a potentially troublesome sign, the polls at first were deserted in
mostly Sunni cities like Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra around Baghdad,
and in the restive, heavily Sunni northern city of Mosul.

Clashes had erupted between insurgents and Iraqi soldiers in western
Mosul. And in Baghdad's mainly Sunni Arab area of Azamiyah, the
neighborhood's four polling centers did not open, residents said.

A low Sunni turnout could undermine the new government and worsen
tensions among the country's ethnic, religious and cultural groups.

A Web site statement purportedly from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group
claimed responsibility for election-day attacks in Iraq, although the
claim could not be verified. The Jordanian militant is said to be behind
many of the suicide car-bombings, kidnappings and beheadings of
foreigners in Iraq, and his group vowed to kill those who ventured out
to vote.

Casting his vote, Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi called it "the
first time the Iraqis will determine their destiny."

Turnout was brisk in Shiite Muslim and mixed Shiite-Sunni neighborhoods.
Even in the small town of Askan in the so-called "triangle of death"
south of Baghdad, 20 people waited in line at each of several polling
centers. More walked toward the polls.

Rumors of impending violence were rife. When an unexplained boom sounded
near one Baghdad voting station, some women put their hands to their
mouths and whispered prayers. Others continued walking calmly to the
voting stations. Several shouted in unison: "We have no fear."

"Am I scared? Of course I'm not scared. This is my country," said
50-year-old Fathiya Mohammed, wearing a head-to-toe abaya.

At one polling place in Baghdad, soldiers and voters joined hands in a
dance, and in Baqouba, voters jumped and clapped to celebrate the
historic day. At another, an Iraqi policeman in a black ski mask tucked
his assault rifle under one arm and took the hand of an elderly blind
woman, guiding her to the polls.

In Ramadi, U.S. troops coaxed voters with loudspeakers, preaching the
importance of every ballot.

The election is a major test of President Bush's goal of promoting
democracy in the Middle East. If successful, it also could hasten the
day when the United States brings home its 150,000 troops. More than
1,400 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the
Iraq war in March 2003, including a U.S. Marine killed in combat Sunday
in Iraq's restive Anbar province. No details were released on the latest
death.

Security was tight. About 300,000 Iraqi and American troops were on the
streets and on standby to protect voters, who entered polling stations
under loops of razor wire and the watchful eye of rooftop sharpshooters.

Private cars were mostly banned from the streets, forcing suicide
bombers to strap explosives to their bodies and carry out attacks on
foot.

The governor of the mostly Sunni province of Salaheddin, Hamad Hmoud
Shagti, went on the radio to lobby for a higher turnout. "This is a
chance for you as Iraqis to assure your and your children's future," he
said.

Shiite Muslims, estimated at 60 per cent of Iraq's 26 million people,
were expected to turn out in large numbers, encouraged by clerics who
hope their community will gain power after generations of oppression by
the Sunni minority.

A ticket endorsed by the country's leading Shiite cleric, Grand
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is expected to fare best among the 111
candidate lists. However, no faction is expected to win an outright
majority, meaning possibly weeks of political deal-making before a new
prime minister is chosen.

The elections will also give Kurds a chance to gain more influence in
Iraq after long years of marginalization under the Baath Party that
ruled the country for 34 years.

"This proves that we are now free," said Akar Azad, 19, who came to the
polls with his wife Serwin Suker and sister Bigat.

Iraqis in 14 nations also held the last of three days of overseas
balloting on Sunday, with officials in Australia extending polling
station hours because of an earlier riot and bomb scare. More than 70 of
the 281,000 registered overseas voters had cast a ballot, according to
Adel al-Lami of the Independent Electoral Commission. He offered no
overall figures.

Speaking in Nigeria, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Sunday's
balloting "the first step" toward democracy. "It's a beginning, not an
end," he said.

Final results of the election will not be known for seven to 10 days,
but a preliminary tally could come as early as late Sunday.

One U.S.-funded election observer said early reports pointed to
smoother-than-expected voting, despite the violence.

"We're hearing there has been fairly robust turnout in certain areas,"
said Sam Patten, a member of the Baghdad team of the International
Republican Institute.

The chief UN adviser to Iraq's election commission, Carlos Valenzuela,
also said turnout seemed to be good in most places.

"These attacks have not stopped the operations," Mr. Valenzuela said.

Asked if reports of better-than-expected turnout in areas where Sunni
and Shiite Muslims live together indicated that a Sunni cleric boycott
effort had failed, one of the main groups pushing the boycott seemed to
soften its stance.

"The association's call for a boycott of the election was not a fatwa
[religious edict], but only a statement," said Association of Muslim
Scholars spokesman Omar Ragheb. "It was never a question of something
religiously prohibited or permitted."

In the most deadly attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a polling
station in western Baghdad, killing himself, three policemen and a
civilian, officials said. Witness Faleh Hussein said the bomber
approached a line of voters and detonated an explosives belt.

In a second suicide attack at a polling station, a bomber blew up
himself, one policeman and two Iraqi soldiers. In a third suicide attack
at a school in western Baghdad, three people and the bomber died, police
said.

And in a fourth, at another school in eastern Baghdad, a suicide bomber
killed himself and at least three others. Another five people died in
other suicide attacks.

Also, a suicide bomber blew himself up near the home of Iraq's justice
minister in western Baghdad in an apparent assassination attempt. The
minister was not home but the attack killed one person, an Interior
Ministry official said.

The rest were killed in shootings and explosions in several communities
north of Baghdad.

Overall, eight of the 36 people killed were suicide bombers.

In addition, three people were killed when mortars landed near a polling
station in Sadr City, the heart of Baghdad's Shiite Muslim community.
Two others died when a mortar round hit a home in Amel, and a policeman
died in a mortar attack on a polling station in Khan al-Mahawil, south
of Baghdad.

In Mosul, the province's deputy escaped an assassination attempt, but
his bodyguard was killed.





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