Does anyone honestly believe the Iraqi Constitution is NOT

[carolinalady]

going to be approved? Those Sunni's are about to be "Ohioed"! The MSM set-up--the Sunni's were expected to not show up to vote or to reject the offer. From what I have been hearing, they did show up but you will never hear the true results of their vote. IMO.

[zanne]

1. I wish I had saved the article...

I can't find it now, but last week I read an article linked here on DU about the US military "protecting" the ballots. The article said that they would be in charge of watching over them and moving them from one place to another. I gave up hope at that point.

[tk2kewl]

2. they may be... but that certainly won't be good

they will not being sitting home watching american idol shrugging their shoulders if they get "ohioed"

[LynnTheDem]

3. STONING FOR IRAQI WOMEN wooohooo FREEEEDOM!!!

BUSH'S PROGRESS; "Iraq Constitution"!

#1. bush will LIE AGAIN this week about his "PROGRESS" in Iraq;

MOST IRAQIS HAVE NOT EVEN SEEN THE CONSTITUTION THEY'RE TO VOTE ON.

Gee what "PROGRESS"!

It's expected to pass, because the VIOLENCE will keep Iraqis away from the voting booths.

Gee what "PROGRESS"!

Iraqis vote on 'invisible' constitution

Insurgency hampers distribution of crucial document as millions prepare to go to the polls this week...
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article318225.ece

#2. 2000 Americans dead...for an IRANIAN-STYLE ISLAMIC STATE of repressed women in IRAQ;

"Unmaking Iraq, the Constitutional Process Gone Awry,"

The Iraqi constitution as written will push that country toward full-scale civil war, a report from a nonprofit organization warns. Melissa Block talks with Robert Malley, director of the International Crisis Group's Middle East program.
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?l=1&id=3703

"It may well be more of a prelude to civil war than a step forward," Anthony H. Cordesman said in an analysis for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The Bush administration endorsed Iraq's proposed new constitution yesterday, but analysts warned that some provisions can be interpreted to undermine everything from the distribution of political power to a secular judiciary, from women's rights to fair distribution of oil revenue.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/24/AR2005082402217_pf.html

There are, however, significant doubts about the religious nature of the new constitution...

"It is written by Islamists for Islamists"

Zainab and her friend Zahra, 37, are both deeply apprehensive about the effect the constitution will have on women's rights. Since "liberation" by US-led forces they have seen the growth in the power of Muslim clerics and the diminishing power of choice.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article318609.ece

The Iraqi constitution's downside for women
http://www.juancole.com/2005/09/iraqi-constitutions-downside-for-women.html

Iraqi Women May Lose Basic Rights Under New Constitution
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0723-06.htm

Iraq's Draft Constitution Is Said to Deepen Divide...will likely trigger civil war...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/26/AR2005092601442.html

UN issues warning over Iraq constitution

There are fears that Iraq's draft Constitution, due to go a referendum next week, could trigger the break up of the country and even spark a bloody civil war.
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2005/s1473209.htm
Americans Die for Sharia (ISLAMIC STATE) in Iraq

It's so Abdul the Iraqi can have six wives. It's so women can be forced to wear the abaya, alcohol can be banned, and sharia law – Muslim religious beliefs as interpreted by a council of mullahs and "grand ayatollahs" – can become the law of the land. As one of the Shi'ite clerics' representatives put it the other day:

"We don't want to see equality between men and women because according to Islamic law, men should have double of women. This is written in the Quran and according to God."
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=4774

#3. Iraq "constitution"...A Lose-Lose Referendum;

Five days before Saturday's referendum on Iraq's proposed constitution, the U.S. foreign policy elite appears both anxious and gloomy, increasingly worried that win or lose, the process will bring Iraq one step closer to civil war and, with it, the possible destabilisation of the wider region.

"We've looked for the constitution to be a national pact, and the perception now is that it's not," Gen. George Casey, the commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq, told lawmakers here last week. "Now this constitution has come out, and it didn't come out as a national compact that we thought it was going to be."

Makiya believes the combination of violence and the constitution threatens "the very idea and very possibility of an Iraq".

Barbara Bodine, a veteran diplomat and Middle East expert currently at Harvard University, whose appointment to a senior CPA post after the invasion was blocked by neo-conservatives in the Pentagon, echoed that view.

"The United States has 'Lebanonised' Iraq. It is ironic that a structure that worked so poorly for Lebanon is now the template for Iraq."
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1012-03.htm

#4. LUCKY Iraqi women! STONING FOR ADULTERY coming soon!

La Repubblica: "Putting it in a nutshell, there will be no more stoning of adulterous women, is that it?"

Al-Yasari, cleric al Sistani's spokesman:
"Well, it depends. In the case of married women whom eye witnesses can accuse of betraying their husbands, the punishment can only be that. But in any event there will be very few exemplary sentences, and they will always be issued after a fair trial."

Welcome to "liberated" Iraq – that’s what our troops are dying for, and that’s what you’re paying for. It’s medievalism with a "democratic" face.

http://www.iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article/39110

STONING WOMEN! CIVIL WAR! VOTE for a "constitution" you've never read! That's PROGRESS if you're a bushbot idiot!

[smoogatz]

4. Well, it's not really freedom

if you can't stone a few women...

[LynnTheDem]

5. True, very true...but I'd like to see some men stoned as well. Equality

and all.

[acmavm]

6. Yeah, I'm sure that's exactly what a lot of republican fundie fruitcake

men in this country would love to be able to do.

I was not casting any aspersions upon you. I'm just adding to your post.

[rosesaylavee]

7. Yes, but can the women drive? (sarcasm) n/t

[LynnTheDem]

10. No, they can't see the road through their abayas.

RAH RAH RAH!

[rosesaylavee]

12. I am convinced that many if not all of the world's woes

WILL be solved and rectified by women eventually. When I speak of WOMEN I am not referring to the Ann Coulters' and Phyllis Schaffleys' of the world but the moms who want a safe environment to raise their families and don't want their children used as cannon fodder when they leave home.

That's why women are dangerous to patriarchal societies... and I include our own in that category.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. Too many know-it-alls and prophets here at DU.

[carolinalady]

9. I guess after watching two elections stolen in the "greatest

freedom loving country in the world", I am a bit skeptical.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. Skeptical is good.

Big difference between the skeptics (including myself and yourself) and the know-it-alls / prophets.

A lot of people here are so knowledgeable that they are able to make instant judgments on the skimpiest of data, or so it seems.

[smoogatz]

13. Sy Hersh reported in the New Yorker a few months back

about U.S. attempts to manipulate the January Iraqi election results, in a mostly failed attempt to increase the Sunni share of the vote--apparently Bushco didn't count on ballot-stuffing in equal measures by the Kurds and Shi'ites (apparently the only way to beat them in an election is if you cheat more than they do). So, assuming Hersh is credible (I think he is), there's no reason to think Bushco isn't cheating even more vigorously in the constitutional referendum--the question is, are they for it or agin it? For it, I think, even though it essentially calls for the breakup of the country and is almost certain to spark civil war. And then there's the religious family law courts, to which Lynn is referring.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

14. Hersh is an excellent reporter. He broke the Abu Ghraib debacle.