QUOTES OF THE DAY
There will be no turbans in the government.
-- Adnan Ali, senior leader of the Shia Dawa Party
(Dexter Filkins, New York Times)
It's a question of luck. A small group of [terrorists] can't target all the voting stations. I'm going because [Ayatollah] Al-Sistani said that whoever doesn't vote is going to hell. If the station I'm voting at is attacked then, God willing, I'll die a martyr.
-- Baghdad resident Haider Al-Maliki
(Nermeen Al-Mufti, Al-Ahram Weekly)
[T]he Iraqis do not feel that these elections will lead to the fulfillment of their main demand, which is the end of the U.S. occupation. They simply do not see a light at the end of the dark tunnel.
-- Harith Al-Dhari, head of the Muslim Scholars Associations, a Sunni group opposed to holding the elections on January 30.
Unfortunately, Mohammad Al-Anwar, who interviewed Al-Dhari for the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Weekly failed to ask the obvious follow-up questions: If the Sunnis' main demand is the departure of U.S. troops, why do so many support the "insurgency?" Why not simply help form a democratic government and ask American forces to leave? The Sunni leadership, such as it is, has no answer to these questions--for their true goal in their fascist counter-insurgency is to reclaim lost honor and the perquisites of power by re-instating a dictatorial Baath regime. But that hardly makes good copy, especially when compared to Shia like Al-Maliki, does it?