Andrew Sullivan is
asking how we should judge whether the Iraqi elections taking place on Sunday are a success. I don't have an answer for that.
I DO have an answer to the criteria Andrew proffers though. HELL NO. Read on to find out Andrew's criteria.
Andrew throws out the following criteria as a suggestion:
- Over 50 percent turnout among the Shia and Kurds
- Over 30 percent turnout for the Sunnis
- No massive disruption of voting places
- No theft of ballots
- Fewer than 500 murdered??!!
I think Andrew suffers from some pretty damn low expectations. Don't you? To be fair, at least Andrew is willing to lay out his criteria rather than waiting until after the fact to spin it as he sees fit. The Bush administration? They sure like to talk about school accountability, but they positively RUN from any form of testing when it comes to Iraq. To them, the elections are a success NO MATTER WHAT.
Here is what I wrote Andrew:
Andrew,
It's great you are looking for an objective metric to judge the Iraqi elections before the fact rather than after, but I submit that they can not
be deemed anything but a _catastrophic failure_ if anything like 500 people are murdered. That would be roughly _twice_ the amount murdered per capita as compared to September 11th.
From the
CIA factbook you'll find that the United States consists of approximately
293,027,571 folks. Iraq, on the other hand, has about
25,374,691 people. Were 500 people to be murdered in Iraq on Sunday that would constitute a disaster _twice_ as harmful per capita as the single greatest day of mourning our nation has ever known.
It would be hard to imagine anything even close to 250 people murdered in Iraq on Sunday and the country the better for it.
Sincerely,
Adam T.
In my opinion, in order for the Iraq elections to be a success, people have to be able to vote _free of fear._ Further, they have to have some semblance of an idea WHAT THEY ARE VOTING FOR. In this light, as currently constituted, the Iraq elections are already a failure in my eyes. This is the worst possible lesson in democracy the US could give to the Iraqi people. They are being asked to risk their very lives in a vote for candidates too afraid to campaign for office.
However, let's show the Right that we aren't afraid to stand behind our convictions. Right now, before the election:
What will it take for the Iraqi elections to be considered a success in your eyes?
