Would you vote for the proposed Iraqi constitution?

Monte Smith · October-14th-2005, 01:45 PM

The vote is tomorrow, Saturday, Oct. 15 in Iraq.

If you were an Iraqi, would you vote for the constitution? Use your sympathetic imagination--even Saddam Hussein will be able to vote (interestingly), so lift up your voice and be counted on JC.

Public poll.

Noj · October-14th-2005, 01:50 PM

I've heard most will not have the opportunity to read it first.

Root Doctor · October-14th-2005, 01:56 PM

Good luck making this work:

Article (2): 1st - Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation:
(a) No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam.
(b) No law can be passed that contradicts the principles of democracy.
(c) No law can be passed that contradicts the rights and basic freedoms outlined in this constitution.
2nd - This constitution guarantees the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people and the full religious rights for all individuals and the freedom of creed and religious practices.

Monte Smith · October-14th-2005, 02:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Root Doctor

Good luck making this work:

Article (2): 1st - Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation:
(a) No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam.
(b) No law can be passed that contradicts the principles of democracy.
(c) No law can be passed that contradicts the rights and basic freedoms outlined in this constitution.
2nd - This constitution guarantees the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people and the full religious rights for all individuals and the freedom of creed and religious practices.

Yup, a lot of contradiction there and room for interpretation.

moneyp · October-14th-2005, 02:52 PM

I would, if only to get the system moving. The current chaotic system is bad for the country.

October-14th-2005, 04:24 PM

I think it's a highly problematic document, but based on the terms Monte asked for here, yes, if I was an Iraqi, I'd vote for it because I'd need something remotely hopeful, something that in some small and imperfect way resembles the promise of democracy.

groover · October-14th-2005, 04:50 PM

If I were an Iraqi, and being Jewish as I am, I'd have emigrated to Israel or America at the first opportunity. Some Jews may have managed to survive under Islamic rule, but I doubt I'd be able to.

JamesH · October-14th-2005, 07:59 PM

It will just fuel the civil war that's already started.

Scott Dolan · October-14th-2005, 08:02 PM

Mone and Achilles, you both make some excellent points. I voted yes for basically the same reasons.

Gordon B · October-14th-2005, 08:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Root Doctor

Good luck making this work:

Article (2): 1st - Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation:
(a) No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam.
(b) No law can be passed that contradicts the principles of democracy.
(c) No law can be passed that contradicts the rights and basic freedoms outlined in this constitution.
2nd - This constitution guarantees the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people and the full religious rights for all individuals and the freedom of creed and religious practices.

There's no Supreme Court of Islamic scholars with the authority to overturn laws that are anti-Islamic. That makes Iraq very different from Iran. Sure, there are conflicting passages in the Constitution but that's much better than an unambiguous submergence of democracy to an Islamic theocracy. If it passes with Sunni support, I will be very pleased. I would have voted "no" before the recent compromise that drew in the Sunnis.

I found the constitution summarized in the Seattle Times, reprinted below.

Form of government: Iraq will be a federal, parliamentary democracy. Provincial administrations will be given a strong level of autonomy, including the right to form regional governments that will be allowed to set up their own security structures.

Elections: To be held every four years.

Prime Minister: The leader of the parliamentary majority.

State religion: Islam, although religious freedom is guaranteed. Islam is also recognized as a main source of all legislation. No law can contradict fixed principles of Islam or democracy or rights granted elsewhere in the constitution.

Rights: Iraqis are equal before the law, with the rights to freedom of expression, the press and assembly. Men and women are given equal political rights, including the right to run as candidates. The Baath party, once led by Saddam Hussein, is banned.

Legal system: The judicial system will be transparent, and all forms of torture and inhumane treatment are forbidden.

Official languages: Arabic and Kurdish .

Oil and gas: Reserves are declared "the property of all Iraqi people." Revenues are to be shared equitably by the country's regions, although areas neglected under Saddam will be given preference to ensure economic development.

The Preamble

"In the name of God, the most merciful, the most compassionate

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(We have honored the sons of Adam)

We are the people of the land between two rivers, the homeland of the apostles and prophets, abode of the virtuous imams, pioneers of civilization, crafters of writing and cradle of numeration. Upon our land the first law made by man was passed, the most ancient just pact for homelands policy was inscribed, and upon our soil, companions of the Prophet and saints prayed, philosophers and scientists theorized and writers and poets excelled.

Acknowledging God's right over us, and in fulfillment of the call of our homeland and citizens, and in response to the call of our religious and national leaderships and the determination of our great (religious) authorities and of our leaders and reformers, and in the midst of an international support from our friends and those who love us, marched for the first time in our history toward the ballot boxes by the millions, men and women, young and old, on the thirtieth of January two thousand and five, invoking the pains of sectarian oppression sufferings inflicted by the autocratic clique and inspired by the tragedies of Iraq's martyrs, Shiite and Sunni, Arabs and Kurds and Turkmen and from all the other components of the people and recollecting the darkness of the ravage of the holy cities and the South in the Sha'abaniyya uprising and burnt by the flames of grief of the mass graves, the marshes, Al-Dujail and others and articulating the sufferings of racial oppression in the massacres of Halabcha, Barzan, Anfal and the Fayli Kurds and inspired by the ordeals of the Turkmen in Basheer and as is the case in the remaining areas of Iraq where the people of the west suffered from the assassinations of their leaders, symbols and elderly and from the displacement of their skilled individuals and from the drying out of their cultural and intellectual wells, so we sought hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder to create our new Iraq, the Iraq of the future free from sectarianism, racism, locality complex, discrimination and exclusion.

... We the people of Iraq who have just risen from our stumble, and who are looking with confidence to the future through a republican, federal, democratic, pluralistic system, have resolved with the determination of our men, women, the elderly and youth, to respect the rules of law, to establish justice and equality to cast aside the politics of aggression, and to tend to the concerns of women and their rights, and to the elderly and their concerns, and to children and their affairs and to spread a culture of diversity and defusing terrorism. ... to draft, through the values and ideals of the heavenly messages and the findings of science and man's civilization, this lasting constitution.

Gary Sisco · October-15th-2005, 07:43 AM

I'd vote no because it's designed more for American political convenience than anything else and will fuel continued civil war at best. Never mind that I'd not vote for any constitution that bases itself on any religion, Islam or otherwise, or any faction of any religion. Ditto on any tribalism or nationalism. Democracy is based on citizenship, period, or nothing. Voting and democracy are not the same things, nor is a constitution and democracy the same thing.

There will continue to be civil war and chaos, either way, voted up or voted down. As I've said countless times, there is too much hash to be settled there and settled it will be. Eventually, a "new order" will emerge from the chaos, years out, but it won't be any kind of "new order" any reasonable American would care to see, much less claim responsibility for, whatever that means in the US today, when taking responsibility for something means nothing in the way of personal consequences of any kind. (I realize also of course that the word "reasonable" in this case rules out nearly everyone in DC or who is likely to be there in future.)

What Americans want or think is entirely irrelevant in that context. Alfred E. Bush's puppetmasters and asskissers want it for American domestic consumption more than any Iraqi wants it for anything at all.

Iraq is going to look a lot more like Beirut in the days than Vietnam or any idiot fantasy floating around in the bunker, er, White House.

There will be a fuhrerdammerung anyway, whatever anyone in the US wants or thinks. The process is as unstoppable now as an avalanche.

The greatest irony of the situation is that Alfred E.'s crew's end result will be a Shi'a state not only in Iran but Iraq -- exactly the situation they sought to prevent by arming and propping up Saddam Hussein to begin with, back in the Reagan daze, and it will be brought to you by many of the same people (Rumsfeld et al).

Chalk it up to American amnesia, again. It's a mass pathology.

GoodSpeak · October-15th-2005, 09:55 PM

Since I am not living in Iraq, it is more than a little presumptuous for me to assume what is best for a sovereign nation...no, wait! An illegally invaded sovereign nation.

My bad.

jeff54 · October-15th-2005, 10:30 PM

I never even voted for the one we have in the U.S.

Gordon B · October-16th-2005, 08:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoodSpeak

Since I am not living in Iraq, it is more than a little presumptuous for me to assume what is best for a sovereign nation...no, wait! An illegally invaded sovereign nation.

My bad.

Tim, The poll question was "If you were an Iraqi..." It wasn't "If you as an American were allowed to vote on the Iraqi Constitution."

GoodSpeak · October-16th-2005, 09:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gordon B

Tim, The poll question was "If you were an Iraqi..." It wasn't "If you as an American were allowed to vote on the Iraqi Constitution."

Gordon, The Poll question is asking us, Americans or not, if we were in Iraq would we vote, et cetera.

Absolutely no distinction was made nationality to nationality. OK?

Major, giant, hugely big difference here.

I am an American. I cannot respond for any other Nationality other than my own nor can I suppose their sympathies.

Please read, then critisize.

Gordon B · October-16th-2005, 09:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoodSpeak

Gordon, The Poll question is asking us, Americans or not, if we were in Iraq would we vote, et cetera.

Absolutely no distinction was made nationality to nationality. OK?

Major, giant, hugely big difference here.

I am an American. I cannot respond for any other Nationality other than my own nor can I suppose their sympathies.

Please read, then critisize.

Tim, you lack empathy for Iraqi voters.

em·pa·thy Audio pronunciation of "empathy" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (mp-th)
n.

1. Identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives.

GoodSpeak · October-16th-2005, 09:36 PM

Empathy?

The question was: Would you vote for the proposed Iraqi constitution?

I think you are either purposely fooling yourself into believing there is an issue here of some sort or you are at cross puposes.

I think the later is true.

Monte Smith · October-16th-2005, 09:39 PM

Hahaha.

GoodSpeak · October-16th-2005, 10:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

Hahaha.

That's all you got?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.....

Pssssh.

Monte Smith · October-16th-2005, 10:28 PM

I'm laughing at the slim chances that Gordon must entertain as he faces the daunting task of proving you wrong, Goody.

GoodSpeak · October-16th-2005, 10:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

I'm laughing at the slim chances that Gordon must entertain as he faces the daunting task of proving you wrong, Goody.

Well how about that.

I'll be dammed.

Monte Smith · October-16th-2005, 10:37 PM

Well, it's not so surprising really, Goody. You've resorted to your frequent behavior of taking up a position that is barely intelligible, let alone vulnerable to refutation by logic.

GoodSpeak · October-16th-2005, 10:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

Well, it's not so surprising really, Goody. You've resorted to your frequent behavior of taking up a position that is barely intelligible, let alone vulnerable to refutation by logic.

Big talk from somebody who shamelessly spews his radical right bullshit and expects, no...DEMANDS that all the rest of us should blindly rubberstamp it.