The Story of the Ghost
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 31 January 2005
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"United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential
election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting. According to reports from Saigon, 83 percent of
the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the
Vietcong. A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson's policy of encouraging the
growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam."
- Peter Grose, in a page 2 New York Times article titled, 'U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote,' September 4, 1967.
In all the media hoopla over Sunday's "election" in Iraq, a few details got missed.
The powerful and influential Association of Muslim Scholars is not buying the idea that there was some great democratic
breakthrough with this vote. AMS spokesman Muhammad al-Kubaysi responded to the election by saying, "The elections are
not a solution to the Iraqi problem, because this problem is not an internal dispute to be resolved through accords and
elections. It lies in the presence of a foreign power that occupies this country and refuses even the mere scheduling of
the withdrawal of its forces from Iraq."
"We have consistently argued," continued al-Kubaysi, "that elections can only occur in a democracy that enjoys
sovereignty. Our sovereignty is incomplete. Our sovereignty is usurped by foreign forces that have occupied our land and
hurt our dignity. These elections... are a means of establishing the foreign forces in Iraq and keeping Iraq under the
yoke of occupation. They should have been postponed."
Al-Kubaysi likewise raised grave concerns about low turnout in Sunni areas such as Baghdad, Baquba and Samarra, and
stated flatly that the deep secrecy that shrouded the candidates themselves invalidated the process. "The voter goes to
the polling stations not knowing who he is voting for in the first place," he said. "There are more than 7,700
candidates, and I challenge any Iraqi voter to name more than half a dozen. Their names have not been announced but have
been kept secret. Elections should never have been held under these present circumstances."
The American media is painting these newly-minted Iraqi voters as flush with the thrill of casting a ballot. In truth,
however, some other more pressing motivations lay behind their rush to the polling places. Dahr Jamail, writing for
Inter Press Service, reported that "Many Iraqis had expressed fears before the election that their monthly food rations
would be cut if they did not vote. They said they had to sign voter registration forms in order to pick up their food
supplies. Just days before the election, 52 year-old Amin Hajar, who owns an auto garage in central Baghdad, had said,
'I'll vote because I can't afford to have my food ration cut. If that happened, me and my family would starve to
death.'"
'Will Vote For Food' is not a spectacular billboard for the export of democracy.
"Where there was a large turnout," continued Jamail, "the motivation behind the voting and the processes both appeared
questionable. The Kurds up north were voting for autonomy, if not independence. In the south and elsewhere Shias were
competing with Kurds for a bigger say in the 275-member national assembly. In some places like Mosul the turnout was
heavier than expected. But many of the voters came from outside, and identity checks on voters appeared lax. Others
spoke of vote-buying bids. More than 30 Iraqis, a U.S. soldier, and at least 10 British troops died Sunday. Hundreds of
Iraqis were also wounded in attacks across Baghdad, in Baquba 50km northeast of the capital as well as in the northern
cities Mosul and Kirkuk."
Perhaps the most glaring indication that this "election" did little to settle the bloody reality in Iraq came three days
before the ballots were cast. In a letter to congress dated January 28, the neoconservative think-tank/power broker
known as The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) essentially called for a draft without actually using the 'D'
word.
Project Censored, the organization that tracks important yet wildly under-reported stories, declared the existence,
motivations and influence of PNAC to be the #1 censored media story for 2002-2003. Most t r u t h o u t readers are familiar with PNAC, but for those who missed this story, a quick refresher is
required.
The first vital fact about PNAC has to do with its membership roll call: Dick Cheney, Vice President of the United
States, former CEO of Halliburton; Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense; Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense;
Elliot Abrams, National Security Council; John Bolton, Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security; I.
Lewis Libby, Cheney's top National Security assistant. This list goes on.
These people didn't enjoy those fancy titles in 2000, when the PNAC manifesto 'Rebuilding America's Defenses' was first published. Before 2000, these men were just a bunch of power players who got shoved out of government in
1993. In the time that passed between Clinton and those hanging chads, these people got together in PNAC and laid out a
blueprint. 'Rebuilding America's Defenses' was the ultimate result. 2000 became 2001, and the PNAC boys suddenly had the
fancy titles and a chance to swing some weight.
'Rebuilding America's Defenses' became the roadmap for foreign policy decisions made in the White House and the
Pentagon; PNAC had the Vice President's office in one building, and the Defense Secretary's office in the other.
Attacking Iraq was central to that roadmap from the beginning. When former Counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke accused
the Bush administration of focusing on Iraq to the detriment of addressing legitimate threats, he was essentially
denouncing them for using the attacks of September 11 as an excuse to execute the PNAC blueprint.
The goals codified in 'Rebuilding America's Defenses,' the manifesto, can be boiled down to a few sentences: The
invasion and occupation of Iraq, for reasons that had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein. The building of several
permanent military bases in Iraq, the purpose of which are to telegraph force throughout the region. The takeover by
Western petroleum corporations of Iraq's nationalized oil industry. The ultimate destabilization and overthrow of a
variety of regimes in the Middle East, friend and foe alike, by military or economic means, or both.
"Indeed," it is written on page 14 of 'Rebuilding America's Defenses,' "the United States has for decades sought to play
a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate
justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of
Saddam Hussein."
In the last three years, PNAC has gotten every single thing it placed on its wish list back in 2000. This is why their
letter to congress last week is so disturbing. The letter reads in part:
The United States military is too small for the responsibilities we are asking it to assume. Those responsibilities are
real and important. They are not going away. The United States will not and should not become less engaged in the world
in the years to come. But our national security, global peace and stability, and the defense and promotion of freedom in
the post-9/11 world require a larger military force than we have today. The administration has unfortunately resisted
increasing our ground forces to the size needed to meet today's (and tomorrow's) missions and challenges.
So we write to ask you and your colleagues in the legislative branch to take the steps necessary to increase
substantially the size of the active duty Army and Marine Corps. While estimates vary about just how large an increase
is required, and Congress will make its own determination as to size and structure, it is our judgment that we should
aim for an increase in the active duty Army and Marine Corps, together, of at least 25,000 troops each year over the
next several years.
Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution places the power and the duty to raise and support the military forces of the
United States in the hands of the Congress. That is why we, the undersigned, a bipartisan group with diverse policy
views, have come together to call upon you to act. You will be serving your country well if you insist on providing the
military manpower we need to meet America's obligations, and to help ensure success in carrying out our foreign policy
objectives in a dangerous, but also hopeful, world.
Brush aside the patriotic language, and you have the ideological architects of this disastrous Iraq invasion stating
flatly that the American military is being bled dry, and that the ranks must be replenished before that military can be
used to push into Iran, Syria and the other targeted nations. The 'D' word is not in this letter, but it screams out
from between the lines. All the lip service paid to the Iraq elections by these people does not contrast well with their
cry for more warm bodies to feed into the meat grinder.
Lyndon Johnson was excited about voter turnout in Vietnam in September 1967. Eight years, three Presidents and millions
of dead people later, that excitement proved to have been wretchedly illusory. There is no reason, no reason whatsoever,
to believe that the Iraq election we witnessed this weekend will bring anything other than death and violence to the
people of that nation and our soldiers who move among them. History repeats itself only when we are stupid enough to
miss the lessons learned in past failures. The wheel is coming around again.
[ Author's Note | The fascinating New York Times article on the Vietnam election in 1967 was first located and published by patachon on the DailyKos blog forum.
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William Rivers Pitt is the senior editor and lead writer for truthout. He is a New York Times and international bestselling author of two
books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know' and 'The Greatest Sedition is Silence.'