A rchive Date
[ 05-12-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[http://www.torontosun.com/Columnists/harris.html
Fundamentally unsound
What does the Bush administration want for Iraq? Whatever its goals are, they don't seem to call for democracy or a free press - censorship and theocracy are closer to the mark
By MICHAEL HARRIS - For The Ottawa Sun
December 5, 2003
It only seems fitting: If George Bush decides the political fate of Iraq, the Iraqi people may well end up determining if he gets to stay in the White House.
As Americans brace for a presidential election year in which patriotism will do battle with accountability, Iraq will be the main battleground. The clock is ticking down to June 30, 2004, the date of the so-called "handover" of power to the Iraqis. In an odd way, the face of the new Iraq will raise as many embarrassing questions about America's real intentions in the region as the phony reasons the president gave for going to war in the first place.
Free elections nixed
Whatever else George Bush has in mind for Iraq, it doesn't seem to be democracy. Ever since the U.S. military flattened the place with a 21st-century display of hi-tech force that killed 15,000 Iraqis and crushed the primitive Iraqi army, the Bush administration has nixed the notion of free elections. The president has insisted that in the absence of an electoral law and accurate voter rolls holding a nationwide election would be time-consuming, disruptive, and open to manipulation.
Apart from sounding a lot like U.S. politics in the 2000 presidential vote, such reasoning is surely absurd. Democracy is always a nuisance to the ruling classes. And is the administration really saying it can get to the moon and ship the heart of the U.S. military halfway around the world to boot out a brutal dictator but that holding an election is just too darn complex for the world's only super-power? The fact is that the U.S. wants anything but an election in Iraq and sadly, the record proves it.
Here, so far, is what liberation has come to mean for Iraqis.
First, an appointed Governing Council reporting to U.S. administrator Paul Bremer; then appointed U.S. puppets writing Iraq's new constitution subject to U.S. approval; next, a provincial government chosen by so-called regional caucuses. And who gets to choose the 18 caucuses representing the 18 provinces of the country? That would be up to an organizing committee appointed by administrator Bremer. In order to participate in the caucus, a prospect would have to be approved by 11 of 15 people on the organizing committee, which is about as handpicked as you can get.
If the British had suggested any of the above to the good people of the Thirteen Colonies as a substitute for representative government, the Boston Tea Party would have turned into a rave. How weird has it become? The guy in Iraq who wants what we in the west have - a general election to decide who will govern us - is Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani: The fellow opting for one form or another of colonial rule is one George W. Bush.
So for the time being, liberation has not meant power to the people in Iraq. But what about that other mainstay of democracy as we know it, a free press? Apparently, Iraqis have rather warmed up to the idea. Since Saddam began his elevated game of hide-and-seek as a political fugitive last May, more than 200 newspapers have sprung up in Iraq. There has also been a brisk business in satellite dishes. For the first time in their lives, Iraqis got to do what we routinely do every day - choose between a wide variety of information sources to find out what's going on.
At least that was the idea, until the puppet Governing Council, with the blessing of the Bush administration, last week pulled the plug on Al-Arabiya, which, along with Al-Jazeera, is one of the two leading broadcasters in Iraq.
The ostensible reason for silencing al-Arabiya is that it broadcast a statement purported to be from Saddam Hussein. Donald Rumsfeld, with McCarthy-esque zeal, venomously denounced Al-Arabiya as working in league with the Iraqi resistance. This from the man who told the world that he knew where Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction were hidden and who had "bulletproof" evidence linking al-Qaida to Iraq - both of which assertions have been solidly repudiated not by his detractors but by CIA chief George Tenet and his own president. As with these other stretchers, Rumsfeld offered no proof for his assertion that Al-Arabiya was in league with the enemy, which, in the for- us-or-against-us universe, seems no longer to be required.
There is further embarrassment. Given that CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS have all done the same thing as Al-Arabiya, (broadcast alleged statements from Saddam Hussein), it is obvious what the coalition is really doing here. It is censoring a source of information that is critical of the U.S. invasion, unimpressed with the ersatz government it has installed, and mistrustful of its long-term ambitions in the region. The American answer to the need to know in Iraq is a pathetic drycleaning of the news on Iraq's main channel, two domestic radio stations, and a flunky newspaper - all of which they control and all of which are watched and read by hundreds.
The Bush administration does not want democracy for Iraq, so much as a government that it can control in the interests of the United States while giving the appearance of replacing a repressive regime with a popular one. And therein lies the rub. If the U.S. were to sanction general elections, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, a powerful figure in the Shiite majority, would likely become the first leader of the new Iraq - a cleric at the head of a fundamentalist theocracy presiding over the world's second-largest oil reserves.
False pretences
Exchanging a secular dictator for an ayatollah is not what most Americans had in mind when their president took them to war under false pretences. Equally, seeing their country governed by compliant puppets supported by state-run media is not what most Iraqis had in mind when they were involuntarily liberated.
But for now, the Bush plan for Iraq looks a lot like former U.S. Sen. S.I. Harakawa's ideas about that famous waterway: "We should keep the Panama Canal. After all, we stole it fair and square."
Author, broadcaster and investigative journalist Michael Harris can be heard Monday to Thursday, 1-3 p.m. on 580 CFRA.
Letters to the editor should be sent to oped@ott.sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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