| Bush is enthusiastic about elections overseas because he has learned that elections are just one more method of exerting control over who runs countries. (They learned that in Florida in 2000.) |
| In the months before the Iraqi elections in January, President Bush approved a plan to provide covert support to certain Iraqi candidates and political parties, but rescinded the proposal because of Congressional opposition, current and former government officials said Saturday.
Any clandestine American effort to influence the Iraqi elections, or to provide particular support to candidates or parties seen as amenable to working with the United States, would have run counter to the Bush administration's assertions that the vote would be free and unfettered. Time magazine first reported in October 2004 that the administration had encountered Congressional opposition over a plan to provide covert support to Iraqi candidates. The New Yorker account detailed more elements of that debate. The article cites unidentified former military and intelligence officials who said the administration went ahead with covert election activities in Iraq that "were conducted by retired C.I.A. officers and other non-government personnel, and used funds that were not necessarily appropriated by Congress." But it does not provide details and says, "the methods and the scope of the covert effort have been hard to discern." Officials and former officials familiar with the debate inside the White House last year said that after considerable debate, the president's national security team recommended that he sign a secret, formal authorization for covert action to influence the election, called a "finding." They said that Mr. Bush either had already signed it or was about to when objections were raised in Congress. Ultimately, he rescinded the decision, the officials said. The current and former officials interviewed Saturday amplified how Mr. Bush had initially approved the plan, and how the White House met objections as it notified Congressional leaders, as required by law. Source: "Plan Called for Covert Aid in Iraq Vote" By DOUGLAS JEHL and DAVID E. SANGER - NY Times -- 7/17/05 The first lesson Bush and his lackeys learned (in Nov.-Dec. 1999) is that elections can be manipulated by using propaganda to influence the electorate, and by flat-out election fraud. His enthusiasm about elections overseas, particularly in the middle east, stems from his assumption that by using propaganda to drive the electorate towards the desired result, and through election rigging if necessary, he can determine who winds up in power. This is a lesson he learned in the 2000 U.S. presidential election in Florida, where the election was clearly rigged by Florida Sec. Of State Katherine Harris, a devout Bush supporter, Bush campaign chair and subordinate of Bush's brother, the Governor of Florida. It's a lesson that was reinforced in the 2004 election when propaganda convinced U.S. voters that there were indeed WMDs in Iraq, there was a Hussein-Al Qaeda link, etc. The fact that exit polls in Ohio didn't match election results (a condition that would have cast serious doubt on election legitimacy in any third world election) triggered virtually no questioning of the Ohio result, despite the fact that a substantial percentage of the offical vote was tallied on voting machines with no recount system that were manufactured by a company run by an overt Bush supporter. Is he right? Is democracy, in the long run, so easily manipulated? Will sham elections replace CIA driven coups as the preferred method the U.S. uses to exert control over who runs foreign countries? |
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