Iraq Votes!

Before anyone gets all warm and fuzzy about the electon "results" in Iraq, consider this 1967 news item from the New York Times:

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Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror

by Peter Grose, Special to the New York Times (9/4/1967: p. 2)

WASHINGTON, Sept. 3-- United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.

According to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong.

The size of the popular vote and the inability of the Vietcong to destroy the election machinery were the two salient facts in a preliminary assessment of the nation election based on the incomplete returns reaching here.
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I don't have much hope that it's a 'valid' election; after all, the American Provisional Govt is doing the tallying.

I usually like to lead with optimism, though, and stay with it until that's dashed by the real right world.

And once again, folks in "backwards" foreign lands risk their lives to vote, and enlightened US Citizens can't because they're "too busy" or "don't care". How about making Election Day a national holiday for starters?

Why must you assume that because it is the US provisional gov't it is therefore automatically crooked?

I didn't automatically assume anything, hoody.

However, if the US couldn't be fair to contractors for rebuilding Iraq, and let's face it...neither liberals nor conservatives in this country have much faith in the voting process HERE.

Why are you assuming that because I don't absolutely glorify every endeavor that I automatically vilify every endeavor?

This either-or crap is getting old. And ask Green Flash....it's a fallacy!

The "contractors" who were killed in Iraq weren't there to hang sheet rock. Contractor is the nice new word for MERCENARY. They carry guns to kill people (not hammers and wrenches "for rebuilding Iraq"), and when they get caught, the terrorists and those who support them make no distinctions between the "regular" soldiers and the soldiers of fortune.