On Iraqi elections and more

Finally, the 30th Jan passed away, relatively peacefully.

The prophesies of doom had abounded, each predicting bloodbath and low voter turnout. But that was not to be. I must admit, I trusted those doomsday prophesies more than the assurances of the Iraqi interim government and the US Dept of Defense' statements.

Credit must go to where it is due, including the intelligent tactics adopted by the US forces - curfew and vehicular restrictions close to the polling stations. Also, the fact that the locations of polling booths and the information about the candidates was not disclosed till very close to the polling day also helped.

But this raises some very important questions
1. If the elections were that free and fair, why were networks like Al-Jazeera (traditionally critics of the US led invasion and the US supported interim government) banned by the Iraqi interim government from covering the Iraqi elections?
2. When even the candidates' names were not known to the voters till very close to the elections, what kind of "choice" did these elections signify? Was this real democracy? Or were the voters out there to choose whichever names sounded "good"? This zero choice or blind choice is akin to the elections under Saddam Hussain, where only the Baathists won.
3. When only 66% Iraqi expatriates, who were safe from insurgency, are more likely to be better educated and aware, and had a three day window for voting, voted, is it even sane to assume that millions of illiterate, scared voters turned out to vote, knowing it is akin to suicide, to make it 72% voting? Doesn't this mean that the US propaganda machinery was working overtime?

Unfortunately, I don't have answers right now. But I suspect that just like the British did in India-Pakistan and Palestine-Israel, US is going to do the same - going to leave Iraq in ethnic strife, burning, so that it could have more handles to meddle in the Middle East for the years to come.

For oil.

Only time would tell.