Militant Groups Warn Iraqis Not to Vote
By Nick Wadhams, AP
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Three militant groups warned Iraqis against voting in Jan. 30 elections, saying Thursday that people participating in the "dirty farce" risked attack. All 700 employees of the electoral commission in Mosul reportedly resigned after being threatened.
Ya gotta love these reporters... Al Jazeera says it's so, so it must be. Forget the fact that the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq says they have yet to confirm this as truth. Or maybe the commissioners are playing possum, "resigning" to get these cockroaches off their back. In a war where anything goes, who knows?
Either way, the 12th paragraph down is not the place to debunk what you so boldly put in the 1st paragraph, if I remember journalistic rules correctly.
NEW YEARS EVE U P D A T E!!!
al Jazeera headlines still blare "election officials quit en masse". An early morning CNN reporter was also insisting to CNN Daybreak anchor, Carol Costello, that all had resigned, casually tossing aside her queries about the conflicting story coming from Iraqi election officials.
Despite al Jazeera's headline, they did better than Mr. Wadhams or the CNN Baghdad reporter in respecting journalistic ethics. At least they placed the rebuttal from officials in paragraph two right, below the terrorists claim of successful intimidation.
In its response, however, the electoral commission has vigorously denied the report. "That's not true. We have our staff in Mosul and al-Anbar," Abd al-Hussain al-Hindawi, the head of Iraq's Independent Electoral Commission, told AFP.
Take a moment and apply any form of logic here. Terrorists proclaim they've scared election officials out of their jobs. That's what they want everyone to believe.
If the Electorial Commission calls it a lie, they increase the dangers for the commissioners. If they confirm the resignations, it raises fears, dampens spirits of potential voters, and plays right into the terrorists hands.
Can you say rock and a hard place?
One must question the very motives, or at least intelligence level, of a journalist running with a story that isn't confirmed, and isn't in the innocent Iraqis' safety and interests to confirm or pursue.
Peppering their threats, the terrorists were quick to use US liberal talking points as an illustration that democracy is bad juju.
The radical Ansar al-Sunnah Army and two other insurgent groups issued a statement Thursday warning that democracy was un-Islamic. Democracy could lead to passing un-Islamic laws, such as permitting homosexual marriage, if the majority or people agreed to it, the statement said.
Wow... there it is again. That'same sex marriage' issue, now conveniently used as a wedge by terrorists against the very virtue of democracy. Hummm...
The terrorists did not stop merely with the "threat" of legalization of same sex marriage in Iraq.
"Democracy is a Greek word meaning the rule of the people, which means that the people do what they see fit," the statement said. "This concept is considered apostasy and defies the belief in one God - Muslims' doctrine."
Ansar al-Sunnah earlier posted a manifesto on its Web site saying democracy amounts to idolizing human beings. Thursday's joint statement reiterated the threat that "anyone who accepts to take part in this dirty farce will not be safe."
LOL! "...people do what they see fit". I can't help but think that terrorists would be doomed if they didn't have weaponry. Silver of tongue and manipulative they are not. Few would be threatened by the ability to "do what they see fit". Least of all a people who would welcome such after living under the thumbs of a despot for decades.
By all accounts, except for al Jazeera's of course, the Iraqis are still jazzed up, eager to implement their form of democracy and head to the polls. The election commissioners? That still remains to be seen.
But if they keep this up, the continued efforts by terrorists to intimidate using arguments such as these may be the very key to the election's resounding success.
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