Lift a finger for truth

While the warmongers are already rushing to discount this, Naomi Klein of the Guardian has summed up what really happened in the Iraq elections. Not only were the turnout numbers something ... shall we say "less than originally advertised" but the group the Iraqis voted for have an odd message for George Bush.

"Go Home."

Sorry George, but Iraq has given you the purple finger

The party likely to win the election opposes the US presence and policies

So it is with Betsy Hart and the other near-sighted election observers. They think the Iraqi people have finally sent America those long-awaited flowers and sweets, when Iraq's voters just gave them the (purple) finger. Judging by the millions of votes already counted, Iraqis have voted overwhelmingly to throw out the US-installed Ayad Allawi, who refused to ask the United States to leave. A decisive majority voted for the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA); the second plank in the UIA platform called for "a timetable for the withdrawal of the multinational forces from Iraq".

There are more single-digit messages embedded in the winning coalition's platform. Some highlights: "Adopting a social security system under which the state guarantees a job for every fit Iraqi ... and offers facilities to citizens to build homes"; the alliance also pledges "to write off Iraq's debts, cancel reparations and use the oil wealth for economic development projects". In short, Iraqis voted to repudiate the radical free-market policies imposed by the former chief American envoy Paul Bremer and locked in by a recent agreement with the International Monetary Fund.