Silliness & The Iraqi Constitution
We are less than 48 hours away from the voting on the Iraqi Constitution and the whole spectacle has just become silly. Distribution of the draft Constitution only started a week ago. One wonders whether everyone entitled to vote has even seen the draft much less had an opportunity to analyze it and debate it.
Now we learn that the Constitution has been changed in four respects, one being that it will be open to revision. WTF? How can a vote on a document changed within days of that vote be considered legitimate?
Certainly this is the result of widespread worries that the Sunnis would vote this down; an event that certainly would be a PR blow to President Bush.
To avoid this, an agreement was reached that Bush could trumpet to the media as including the Sunnis. In fact, the deal only included the Iraqi Islamic Party, which, while Sunni, is not the most influential such group and is indeed a group that seeks its power as being the middle man between the Shiites/Kurds that control the government and the Sunnis leading the insurgency. Most notably, the deal they struck only has teeth for the IIP if the insurgency continues so as to create pressure for the real revisions the Sunnis desire (most notably, a change in the provision governing oil distribution).
The determination that has been made is that a gamed Constitution is better than none. Yet, in fact, it will not make any difference. This is just more grasping at straws. The Sunni insurgency will undoubtedly continue and the consolidation of power by Shiite fundamentalists in the South and Kurds in the North will strengthening with each of those two continuing to engage in human rights abuses against those who stand in their way.
What's most depressing is that the Bush administration continues its policy of gaming short-term solutions rather than facing up to the long-term problems. This tells the Iraqi such games are legitimate and there's no doubt that - just as we saw with the attempt to redefine the term "voters" two weeks ago - the Iraqis in power will continue to view democracy as a mere slogan as opposed to a legitimate form of government.
Now we learn that the Constitution has been changed in four respects, one being that it will be open to revision. WTF? How can a vote on a document changed within days of that vote be considered legitimate?
Certainly this is the result of widespread worries that the Sunnis would vote this down; an event that certainly would be a PR blow to President Bush.
To avoid this, an agreement was reached that Bush could trumpet to the media as including the Sunnis. In fact, the deal only included the Iraqi Islamic Party, which, while Sunni, is not the most influential such group and is indeed a group that seeks its power as being the middle man between the Shiites/Kurds that control the government and the Sunnis leading the insurgency. Most notably, the deal they struck only has teeth for the IIP if the insurgency continues so as to create pressure for the real revisions the Sunnis desire (most notably, a change in the provision governing oil distribution).
The determination that has been made is that a gamed Constitution is better than none. Yet, in fact, it will not make any difference. This is just more grasping at straws. The Sunni insurgency will undoubtedly continue and the consolidation of power by Shiite fundamentalists in the South and Kurds in the North will strengthening with each of those two continuing to engage in human rights abuses against those who stand in their way.
What's most depressing is that the Bush administration continues its policy of gaming short-term solutions rather than facing up to the long-term problems. This tells the Iraqi such games are legitimate and there's no doubt that - just as we saw with the attempt to redefine the term "voters" two weeks ago - the Iraqis in power will continue to view democracy as a mere slogan as opposed to a legitimate form of government.
posted by Macswain at
10:17 AM
1 Comments:
It's not unlike legislation, where members of Congress rarely read what they enact into law.
Such practice necessarily requires reference to legislative history, or an evolving interpretation of the constitution, and reveals the idiocy of the "textual" approach of ideologues like Scalia.
In other words, if they can keep the Iraqui Scalias off the courts, I'm less concerned that the people don't have the chance to read all the terms of the constitution before the vote.
It's all a big sham anyway, because in the end the only law that counts will be the one that serves US interests.
We surely didn't invade to have it some other way.
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Anonymous, at 4:05 PM
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