Whose elections are less legitimate? Paul Craig Roberts points out the irony of American politicians decrying a purported lack of democratic legitimacy in Syria.
Today (April 14) Syria held parliamentary elections at 7,000 polling stations, keeping the voting open an extra five hours to accommodate the massive turnout. All were allowed to vote, even displaced Syrians from the two provinces still terrorized by Washington and Israeli backed ISIS.
Washington is angry, because Syria held elections before Washington had time to purchase its slate of politicians and organize Washington-funded NGOs to take to the streets to protest and to claim that Assad had stolen the election.
Despite the massive voter turnout and extended hours for voting, the US State Department set the tone by declaring that the elections are not legitimate in Washington’s eyes and do not represent “the will of the Syrian people.”
Washington’s two-bit punk vassals in London and Paris chimed in with both claiming that the war conditions in Syria to which London and Paris have contributed mean that the idea of elections is “totally unrealistic.”
The New York Times lied, characteristically, that the elections, which seem to demonstrate nationwide solidarity against the Western-backed overthrow of the Syrian government, “highlight divisions and uncertainty.” The Washington Post added its lies and misrepresentations to the propagandistic reporting.
The Western governments are far out on a limb with their lies that the Syrian people prefer to be governed by the Washington supported terrorists who were overrunning their country and conducting with Western supplied weapons mass murder on the Syrian people until Russia put a stop to it. Now the Western liars are exposed yet again by election results, and so the liars must pretend that the election lacks validity.
So, Republicans are in the fascinating position of arguing that Syria’s elections, which actually allow people to vote, are illegitimate and do not represent “the will of the people” because “war conditions”, whereas the Republican nomination in Colorado, where no one is even voting, is legitimate and does represent “the will of the people” despite the people having no voice because “rules”.
And people wonder why Americans support a quixotic outsider like Donald Trump. I vote for a blind and incontinent basset hound before I’d vote for any member of the Republican establishment, which now observably includes Ted Cruz. Of course, if I lived in Colorado, I wouldn’t be able to vote at all.
This isn’t that hard. Yes, we all know America is not a democracy. The point is that if you’re going to repeatedly go to war for democracy, then the first place you should do so is in the USA.