Paris, Feb. 3, 2005 Bob asks: > So why didn't you say anything about the Iraq election? I don't believe it was real, Bob, and I don't believe it matters. I think it's 110% spin. Can we name any candidates? Can we name any positions? Can these people really cast ballots the size of tablecloths? Can you vote with bombs going off? Can you really export democracy -- particularly by blowing a place up? But then I read a piece by Will Pitt on how voter registration was linked to food ration coupons ["Will Vote for Food"]. I also read a New York Times piece from 1967* or so touting the then-current administration's happiness that 80% of the S Vietnamese had come out to vote in a puppet election (there really was no S Vietnam until it was created by the Geneva Convention of 1954**, and even then it was not supposed to be a country -- just a geographic division). However, US policy created a fake division and an instigated civil war that went on for the next 20 years, killing millions and leading nowhere. It was under this context that the staged election of 1967 happened in S Vietnam. When you take apart the Iraq 'policy' chunk by chunk and look at the statements one at a time, the fabrication is, to put it mildly, horrifying. And the death toll, and the kill ratio, and the kids hurt and killed, and the US families shattered and the money spent and the lies piled higher and higher. I do not feel that anything -- anything -- surrounding this situation as stated by the Bush administration has any credibility. And I thought Kerry's position was worse. There is another agenda operating, on about five different levels, and we need to look at that very carefully. Not, for example, what is being thrown front and center in the mainstream media. I've been a member of the press long enough to see exactly how that game works; and it is very much a game, there is a cycle, there is what will cell, and there are very few companies that control all the major news outlets; many of them sell military equipment or parts to the government. You really just need to "follow the money," in the immortal words of Deep Throat. And it was the same with the Johnson admin and Vietnam. See Robert Bly poem "Johnson's Cabinet Watched by Ants" about a meeting at the Bohemian Grove. That's the short version... I really suggest you read http://truthout.org for a while. And see if you can dig out "War Profit Litany" by Allan Ginsberg (must be online).     efc http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1403103,00.html *The Vietnam turnout was good as well No amount of spin can conceal Iraqis' hostility to US occupation Sami Ramadani Tuesday February 1, 2005 Guardian On September 4 1967 the New York Times published an upbeat story on presidential elections held by the South Vietnamese puppet regime at the height of the Vietnam war. Under the heading "US encouraged by Vietnam vote: Officials cite 83% turnout despite Vietcong terror", the paper reported that the Americans had been "surprised and heartened" by the size of the turnout "despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting". A successful election, it went on, "has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam". The echoes of this weekend's propaganda about Iraq's elections are so close as to be uncanny. With the past few days' avalanche of spin, you could be forgiven for thinking that on January 30 2005 the US-led occupation of Iraq ended and the people won their freedom and democratic rights. This has been a multi-layered campaign, reminiscent of the pre-war WMD frenzy and fantasies about the flowers Iraqis were collecting to throw at the invasion forces. How you could square the words democracy, free and fair with the brutal reality of occupation, martial law, a US-appointed election commission and secret candidates has rarely been allowed to get in the way of the hype. ---    **The Geneva Agreements of 20 and 21 July 1954, intended to put an end to the previous conflict, created in Vietnam a state of law, the respect of which was incumbent on all, and particularly on the United States. These Agreements recognized the guarantees, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Vietnam (Articles 6 and 7 of the final Declaration). Although a line of demarcation divided the country into two parts on a level with the 17th parallel, it was expressly stipulated that as the essential aim of this division was to settle military questions, it was of a provisional nature *and could in no way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary’ (Article 6 of the Final Declaration). http://www.911review.org/Wget/www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/littleton/v1119ver.htm