Fears over elections timed to coincide with haj pilgrimage

[maddezmom]

The announcement that the first elections in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime will be on 30 January was greeted yesterday with warnings that a viable poll could not take place in the continuing climate of violence.

The election campaign will also coincide with the haj in mid-January, and the transit of several million pilgrims from Muslim countries such as Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan overland through Iraq to Mecca.

The elections must be held by the end of January for a transitional parliament which will, in turn, pick a new government and oversee the adoption of a constitution, according to the American's timetable for the establishment of representative government.

~snip~

One officer said that those planning the transitional process appeared not to have taken the Muslim calendar into consideration.

The pilgrims will be in Iraq while mosques are being raided by US and Iraqi troops, and with the memory of the bloody battle for Fallujah still fresh in people's minds. A number of Muslim clerics have played leading parts in opposing the US-led occupation forces.

more: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=585388

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Is Bush intent on getting all Muslims mad at him?

I know that there are some rw spokespeople who want to force all Muslims to convert to Christianity or die, but I didn't think this was Bush official policy. Incompetancy in not taking the Muslim calendar into consideration is what I think that happened, but I cringe at what could be the result.

[maddezmom]

2. my question is...what is the plan? will the borders be closed to before

the vote?? I can hear it already, the US military and Iraqi puppet gov't must do everything it can to ensure "elections" for a free and democratic Iraq. :eyes:

[struggle4progress]

4. He REALLY wants WWIII. These wingnuts are intent on bringing ...

... the glorious benefits of the apocalypse to a planet near you.

[chookie]

3. Ooops.

Just an understandable mistake. After all, it wasn't a date chosen by Muslims - PERISH the thought!!

Condi, after all, is a Sovietologist. She fought hard to make sure Election Day was not May 1.

They're hoping, hoping, hoping, hoping Iraqis, who have not as yet taken up the gun, are as dumb and passive as current Americans in "believing" in elections....

I saw the Control Room yesterday. "The Americans not only want us to not MIND that they are bombing us to death -- we are supposed to LIKE it."

[Gman]

5. There are NO accidents with this bunch

they know exactly what they are doing and know EXACTLY what this will provoke.

Call it job security for the GOP. Gotta have terror, you know.

[DireStrike]

6. You only have to go on ONE Haj in your life...

Although I can see why Iraqis might want to go while they still have lives.

[maddezmom]

7. it's the not the Iraqi's per se,,,it's the other countries

that need to travel though Iraq. What if the US Military shuts the border??

[DireStrike]

8. Ah, I see...

I guess they don't all have money to fly...

[maddezmom]

9. yeah, guess not

:eyes: