Clown Royal

"Resounding success," eh? Or so the dauphin says, according to this transcript...and according to reports from the bleating, braying press..."pResident Bush entitled to gloat?" Gloat about what? THIRTY FIVE people were killed by nine suicide bombers. One hundred others were wounded. Juan Cole is my source for the New York Times story, and he has several other valid points: Kurdish and Iraqi Shi'ias voted in large numbers; Iraqi Sunnis stayed away from the polls (Samarra, a city of 200,000, recorded 1,400 votes total).

Nine suicide bombers were able to breach security that resembled nothing so much as a supermax prison, with automotive traffic banned. Raed Jarrar notes that plenty of people believe(d) rumors suggesting food rations would be cut for those who didn't vote. The election itself was for an interim parliament, and, as many have noted, consisted of candidate slates that were secret. They can't stay secret for long, though, meaning that more individuals will become targets for assassination or kidnapping.

One thing I find amazing is how easily Bush is able to dismiss the thirty five people who were killed--he did so with the same aplomb with which he's dismissed the dead US soldiers and Iraqi civilians already killed in the war. Here's a man who, when governor of Texas, had no problem putting to death people who were judged guilty of murder (and in at least one case judged guilty on pretty flimsy evidence). Yet, with upwards of three dozen people killed in one day, Bush does little more than acknowledge them--almost as if it's more an annoyance than anything. There's little or no word on just how he intends to apprehend the folks who organized the violence (and it's safe to say the suicide bombers themselves were not lone nuts--they work in tandem with an insurgency that's quite deadly). No, to Bush, the dead are mere numbers.

Oh, and for those who insist that this "exercise" will somehow turn the tide, Needlenose points to Daily Kos diarist/researcher patachon, who found this interesting story. I'll cite it in part:

WASHINGTON-- United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in...[the] election despite a...terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.

According to reports...83 per cent of the...registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals...

The size of the popular vote and the inability of the [terrorists] 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.

Yeah, the ellipses and words in brackets are there for a reason. If you go look at patachon's post, you'll find out the article is datelined September 4, 1967, and it's about the election in Vietnam.