Thursday January 13, 2005

I've Been Thinking:

Iraq is now registering voters.

From January 17-23 Iraqis around the world can register and then vote in January's elections. Any former Iraqi can vote as long as he or she has an Iraqi document. A birth certificate, passport, ID card University certificate property ownership. Even the son of any Iraqi citizen is eligible to vote.

Is this wise? I do not think so.
If the fear is low Sunni voter turnout so be it. But do not draft outside forces and people to influence internal elections.

The people who should be voting in Iraq are the citizens who live there. Those citizens must assume the roles and responsibilities for the future of their country.

Otherwise the wrong people will be influencing Iraq's first free democratic post Saddam election.

The entire idea is ludicrous. Using the election criteria all 180,000 Iraqi Jews who were exiled from Iraq and fled to Israel now qualify. Today together with their descendants they probably number over a million people. They should not be determining what happens in Iraq's elections.

It is a crazy idea!