Catering to the Sunnis

War to Mobilize Democracy ^ | January 31, 2005

[forty_years]

If the Oklahoma City bombers refused to participate in a U.S. election, would the final results be considered “illegitimate?” What if the Nation of Islam, the Black Panthers, the Communist Party USA, or the Southern Indiana Regional Militia refused to vote in American elections? Would it matter and, really, who gives a damn?

The Left-Wing, e.g. the New York Times, has been trying to hold the Iraqi elections to this type of ridiculous standard regarding Sunni participation.

Granted: Sunnis make up 32-37% of Iraq’s population. While their representation is important, the majority of terrorist attacks aimed at destabilizing Iraq have been committed by Sunnis. The Sunni minority, led by Saddam, have terrorized Iraq’s other ethnic/religious groups for decades. They fear losing their old power, which they will most surely lose no matter what happens. Once the votes are counted, we’ll find that the Shiite majority and Iraq’s other ethnic groups (Kurds, Turkoman) did not vote for their former torturers.

Sunni violence has specifically targeted Iraq’s Shiites, but Shiites have showed enormous restraint. They have not reacted with violence. Iraqi Shiites have shown great courage, determination, and social maturity, waiting to vote instead of plotting revenge.

Despite the facts on the ground, Left-Wing rags like the New York Times run around peddling drivel like:

Sunni participation is crucial to the election. While a Sunni boycott remains far from certain and some Sunni leaders still hold out hope for a turnaround, American officials fear that if large numbers of Sunnis do not vote, the election will be regarded as illegitimate and may even feed the insurgency that has gripped much of the country.

Blah, blah, blah. The Seattle Times reported that,

Unofficial figures from Anbar [a largely Sunni area] revealed that only about 17,000 of as many as 250,000 eligible voters participated. According to those numbers, 1,700 people voted in Ramadi, a city of nearly 400,000 residents; 8,000 in Fallujah, half the size of Ramadi; and about 5,000 in neighboring Nassar Wa Alsalaam, a mostly agricultural community. But in Sunni areas of Baghdad, the turnout appeared heavy.

These Sunnis voted, despite the very real threat of being kidnapped, beheaded, shot, blown up – just name any type of evil deed and al-Qaeda thug Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi is sure to use it. His pathetic and hysterical warning of a “war on democracy” obviously didn’t affect all his fellow Sunnis. Imagine the kind of courage it took for the Sunnis who voted, knowing full well they were being watched by terrorist informants, and marked for some type of gruesome reprisal.

Talk about courage – courage that American and European lefties don’t have, taking for granted the opulence and security provided to them by the democratic nations they inhabit.

This is proof-positive that not all Sunnis can be lumped into some type of all-encompassing generalization (or “de-legitimization”) of Iraq’s historic elections. Never mind the fact that Iraq’s interim president, Ghazi Yawer, is a Sunni. Never mind the fact that one of Iraq’s most prominent Shiite leaders insisted on January 7 that Sunnis will be included in a national unity government “irrespective of how their parties fare in the polls.”

The poor, desperate, hysterical Left-Wing. They’re running out of reasons to criticize the liberation of Iraq. But give them time; they’ll invent more. Just yesterday, John Kerry had to make an irrelevant glass-is-half-empty remark that,

No one in the United States should try to over-hype this election. This election is a sort of demarcation point, and what really counts now is the effort to have a legitimate political reconciliation that is going to take a massive diplomatic effort and a much more significant outreach to the international community than this administration has been willing to engage in.

This coming from a man who can’t make up his mind about anything. Let’s see, Kerry voted to support the war in Iraq. He voted for regime change in Iraq twice (1998 and 2002). Then Kerry voted against funding our troops in Iraq, stating “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.” Two weeks before that, he told CBS, “I don't think any United States senator is going to abandon our troops.” Kerry called himself an “anti-war candidate” but then said he supported the war.

This is one point I can generalize on: The Left-Wing is decrepit, washed out, and useless. Most of the time, one would hope that a democracy has a real need for an opposition party/parties of some type. Problem is, we just don’t have an opposition that is worth a dime at this point in history.

First, the Left screamed that Iraq’s elections were too far off. Then they decided the elections were too early. The Left simultaneously demands more troops be in Iraq while urging the troops be brought home immediately (e.g., Kennedy). Now they have invented a “legitimacy” concern about Sunni participation.

Even the great United Nations is now eating crow:

The UN's senior election official in Iraq, Carlos Valenzuela, told BBC News he was pleased that more people than expected "defied the threat of violence to go and vote".

He said a precise turnout figure would not be known for several weeks, but it appeared higher numbers of Sunnis than expected turned out to vote.

Illegitimate? Not even close. 60% of registered Iraqis turned out, equaling American turnout in the November 2004 election. And this 60% of Iraqis voted under the fear of homicide bombings, beheadings, throat-slashing, gun fire, etc. 60% of Iraqis voted in the midst of a war.

I am 100% certain that Sunnis will be represented in a new Iraqi government no matter what the final vote tally. Iraq’s Shittes, Kurds, Turkoman, etc., will insist upon it, not because they are afraid, but because they want democracy to work in their homeland.

Call me an eternal optimist, just don’t call me a Leftist. It is time to stop all the hand-wringing over Sunni participation. That fact that some Sunnis were brave enough to vote is good enough for me. The Sunnis will come around eventually. If they don’t, they be faced with the full force and determination of Iraqis who chose free will. A free man or women will fight much more tenaciously than a slave. Just look at how free people, American soldiers, took out Saddam in a mere three week’s time.

http://netwmd.com/articles/article876.html

[pennyfarmer]

Sunnis are the favored child and the favoring parent is away. Now that "fairness" is back into play they are upset they have to do the dishes oh and clean their room.