Sinister, Cynical Strategies

     Don't let the hypocrisy hit you on the way out.  The Bu$hCo regime, or friendly agents thereof, have been floating the idea of a referendum to determine whether or not the Iraqi people want American troops to stay in the Iraq.

     The "whip" is the guy who runs around and counts the votes for/against, and usually is also tasked with getting wobblers back in line.  Who is calculating the odds in Iraq?  You can bet people like William Luti (of OSP fame) and Paul Wolfowitz are in on it.

     The winning coalition in the forthcoming elections, in all probability, will not be CIA Terrorist Allawi and his silent partner Yawwer, but the pro-clerical Sistani list.  Once in power they will ask for an immediate withdrawal of US troops.  The US Gov't, rather than seeing this as convenient cover for a hasty exit, considers the request to go a serious inconvenience to American influence and military-industrial profit margins.  Expect outright theft of US taxpayer funds to dramatically increase in the event of early withdrawal.

     Ergo, in defiance of the TAL, the US "friends of Bu$hCo" pundits are all out praising the idea of a national referendum to undo the problems of Iraqis electing the "wrong" leaders.

     It's pretty horrifying to think of what the US military might do to people who disagree with the referendum publicly in the Iraq, should this plan come to fruition.

     NOTE: The TAL specifically outlines, in Articles 53 and 61, that referendums can be used to form sub-national regional groupings(53) and as part of the process to ratify the Constitution itself(61).  The idea that the punditry is putting forward is as Constitutionally sound as a National referendum to ban gay-marriage.