Riverbend's New Year

Baghdad, Iraq
33°21 North; 44°25' East

Oh, to be young and (lucky to be?) alive in Iraq in two thousand and five.....
" We spent New Year at home (like last year)......We sat watching celebrations from different parts of the world. Seeing the fireworks, lights, droves of laughing and singing people really emphasizes our current situation.....We had our own fireworks as we began the New Year countdown. At around 10 minutes to 2005, the house shook with three colossal explosions not too far away...."


And, those elections? While not exactly the smell of Bobby Duvall's 'Napalm in the Morning', they are apparently giving off the queasy aroma of fascist-assisted not-quite Freedom....
"We're being bombarded with cute Iraqi commercials of happy Iraqi families preparing to vote....Can you just imagine what our history books are going to look like 20 years from now?

'The first democratic elections were held in Iraq on January 29, 2005 under the ever-watchful collective eye of the occupation forces, headed by the United States of America. Troops in tanks watched as swarms of warm, fuzzy Iraqis headed for the ballot boxes to select one of the American-approved candidates...'"

Which is not to say there isn't money to be made. After all, this is the Neandercon Utopia of, now, Baghdad Year Zero + One (see Naomi Klein's Archives, Sept 2004) - a place where the profit margins are superb on, whaddya know - phony ballots.
"We're getting our ballots through the people who give out the food rations in the varying areas. The whole family is registered with this person(s) and the ages of the varying family members are known. Many, many, many people are not going to vote. Some of those people are selling their voting cards for up to $400. The word on the street is that these ballots are being bought by people coming in from Iran. They will purchase the ballots, make false IDs (which is ridiculously easy these days) and vote for SCIRI or Daawa candidates."

And it is that last part that is most chilling because it proves, once and for all, that the PNACkian Paddy Wackers that run the Rovians really do have no clue as it clearly portends the rise of a Shiite theocracy which just might make Al Sadr look like a mild-mannered moderate who knows how to fix sewers and get the electricity running. Too bad L. Paul 'Puss In Boots' Bremmer sent Al Sadr to the barricades for no good reason at all.