Liberal columnist admits Bush may be right...

Liberal columnist admits Bush may be right... [+ favourites]

Sun-Times Columnist Mark Brown watched all the millions of Iraqis come out and proudly vote. Now he is seriously considering the possibility that his side was wrong and Bush and the Republicans were right all along.

My favorite line:

"If it turns out Bush was right all along, this is going to require some serious penance.

Maybe I'd have to vote Republican in 2008."

http://www.suntimes.com/output/brown/cst-nws-brown01.html

"Thinking themselves wise they became fools..."

That's a very serious point, the problem is, we had some records set with turn out this last election too, and there are still court cases over blatant election fraud not even including the fraud left undetected or executed well enough.

If you've looked into any of our election problems in both 2000 and now, and I'm sure more before that, there are serious problems, including cheap electronic machines with no paper trail, I mean come on, we are more worried about a reciept for a candy bar? We'll better test a slot machine than an election tabulator? When they flat out tell us how easily these machines can be manipulated and are egregiously faulty with screams of protest without that mattering?

When dead people vote something should start to matter.

Oh but nothing could go wrong with an Iraqi election either, no chance for tampering, its only martial law around voting areas, and an american placed interim government involved.

Just because people vote doesn't mean that nothing is wrong. Its good that they vote, its bad if its tampered with.

Not to mention that its quite a confusing vote they are involved in to begin with.

"The Greatest Enemy of Knowledge is Not Ignorance, It is the ILLUSION of Knowledge. Stephen Hawking"

He appears to be reacting highly emotionally... which isn't a bad thing, necessarily. It is natural to want to see free Iraqis voting, but that doesn't (unfortunately) change the very likely possibilities that:

1. Iraq will end up being a puppet democracy. If the US election could have been rigged unfairly years ago, who's to say the Iraqi one won't as well.

2. Iraq is in the center of American-hated Islam. It will likely suffer the same fate as Palestine, and no matter how many votes occur, no extremist muslim will regard the party in power as one for the people, but rather a puppet of the states.

3. The states is still controlling Iraqi oil, and is trading iraqi oil in US dollars, not Euros, as implemented by Saddam. This indicates a personal interest and a hint at influenced policies in Iraq by the states.

It would be awesome if Iraq could have a free democracy, but there is just too much skepticism in it, and most of it is statistically more probable than it isn't.

"Hating everyone protects me from elitism."

Have all the elections you care to have, if the dominating parties are just playing along until they seize national power and kick the United States out thereafter, you'd got yourself another Afghanistan of the 1980s. Not that the one now is able to stand on its own without the US-backed interim government with one dead vice-president.

MSNBC had some programs on today trying to examine the "successes" Bush has achieved by the turn-out of this election, but you can talk about all you want until the results come in and their subsequent consequences.

I highly doubt the US is just going to step out, if they do, democracy is going to ravage into an oligarchy run by extremists..history doesn't lie in this world.

"Milk, almonds and pistachios."

To the three of you I say yeah, yeah, cry me a river. My Gosh I think we all know the potential dangers inherit in this, Bush better than any one, but it is as if ya'll are so single-minded that all you see is evil behind every motive, monsters behind every corner.

Do you look under the bed for the boogieman each night?

"Thinking themselves wise they became fools..."

I understand why our chorus of concern seems repetative, however, you sound exactly the same, and I wonder if you even notice.

And the current 3 to 1 ratio that you mention tells me that perhaps you should be more wary.

We do not condemn optimism, we have simply been faced with a bloody history that does not add to the rosy picture you paint in your continual Bush ass kissing.

Seriously, I wouldn't be surprised if you wanted an ok on gay marriage just from how you talk about him. It's a little better since you know you are bias, however extreme bias is usually accompanied with blindness to important faults.

"The Greatest Enemy of Knowledge is Not Ignorance, It is the ILLUSION of Knowledge. Stephen Hawking"

Conclusion: If the election was 'fair enough' (it couldnt be fair given some areas weren't given enough ballots, other areas had no votes whatsoever), then Bush might be right.

If the election does not lead to government that trully represents Iraqis (and not American interests) then Bush is an asshole who serves his class.

"Durch Nacht und Blut das Licht"

No, McTex, the boogeyman's got a comprehensive historial past so I've read some of an autobiography of his life.

History repeats itself when dumbasses don't read.

Have all the hopes you want, coming from a Muslim family, I know what sort of probability is going to erupt over there and if you even THINK that Islamic democracies don't end up either a) third world countries or b) third world countries with military coups, I have nothing more to say to you.

"Milk, almonds and pistachios."

I must argue with you a bit DT, as if that is something new, lol.

The election does not need to lead to a perfect representative gov't overnight. All that needs to happen is that the seeds are planted.

Remember that America, Britain etc did not have 'truly' representative governments for most of their histories. Woman and minorities surely werent represented. Hell in the US the Irish were treated like dogs and fought for every freedom they now enjoy.

"Thinking themselves wise they became fools..."