Do we really believe in Democracy?
If we are really trying to establish a democracy in Iraq, it would seem to me that one of the defining premises of a democracy is obeying the will of the people. Not only has the U.S. and its people ignored the 80% of Iraqis (without Kurds it would be closer to 90%) who want the occupiers to leave immediately or in 6 months (this poll was taken 8 months ago), but now there is a majority within the Iraqi parliament who are calling for a withdrawal:
Majority of Iraqi Lawmakers Now Reject Occupation
By Raed Jarrar and Joshua Holland
AlterNet.org
Wednesday 09 May 2007
More than half of the members of Iraq's parliament rejected for the first time on Tuesday the continuing occupation of their country. The US media ignored the story.
On Tuesday, without note in the U.S. media, more than half of the members of Iraq's parliament rejected the continuing occupation of their country. 144 lawmakers signed onto a legislative petition calling on the United States to set a timetable for withdrawal, according to Nassar Al-Rubaie, a spokesman for the Al Sadr movement, the nationalist Shia group that sponsored the petition.
It's a hugely significant development. Lawmakers demanding an end to the occupation now have the upper hand in the Iraqi legislature for the first time; previous attempts at a similar resolution fell just short of the 138 votes needed to pass (there are 275 members of the Iraqi parliament, but many have fled the country's civil conflict, and at times it's been difficult to arrive at a quorum).
Reached by phone in Baghdad on Tuesday, Al-Rubaie said that he would present the petition, which is nonbinding, to the speaker of the Iraqi parliament and demand that a binding measure be put to a vote. Under Iraqi law, the speaker must present a resolution that's called for by a majority of lawmakers, but there are significant loopholes and what will happen next is unclear.
What is clear is that while the U.S. Congress dickers over timelines and benchmarks, Baghdad faces a major political showdown of its own. The major schism in Iraqi politics is not between Sunni and Shia or supporters of the Iraqi government and "anti-government forces," nor is it a clash of "moderates" against "radicals"; the defining battle for Iraq at the political level today is between nationalists trying to hold the Iraqi state together and separatists backed, so far, by the United States and Britain.
The continuing occupation of Iraq and the allocation of Iraq's resources - especially its massive oil and natural gas deposits - are the defining issues that now separate an increasingly restless bloc of nationalists in the Iraqi parliament from the administration of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose government is dominated by Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish separatists.
...[for more go to http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050907R.shtml]
I find it interesting how some use examples of "united" Iraqis as a sign of progress. Indeed it is progress for the Iraqi people who have been bitterly divided by the occupation. But as stated in the article, the key elements of this newfound nationalism is expelling the occupiers and rejecting American privatization of Iraq's natural resources--2 elements that are unacceptable to the White House. If we continue our blind arrogance and anti-democratic attitude towards the Iraqi people, God help us if one day we have to fight a united insurgency.
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Originally Posted by Gaffer
