Watergate.

It's always good to wake up and hear how your government is planning to corrupt another. The Whitehouse came up with a plan to use the CIA to assist candidates favored by the United States in the upcoming Iraqi election. Why? According to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice spokesman Sean McCormack we're concerned the infant democracy might be influenced by governments who are not part of the Coalition of Freedom.

...there have been and continue to be concerns about efforts by outsiders to influence the outcome of the Iraqi elections, including money flowing from Iran. This raises concerns about whether there will be a level playing field for the election. This situation has posed difficult dilemmas about what action, if any, the U.S. should take in response. In the final analysis, we have adopted a policy that we will not try to influence the outcome of the upcoming Iraqi election by covertly helping individual candidates for office.

Uh, hello? We're the largest outside influence in Iraq and the Middle East — rolling tanks through the streets and buzzing neighborhoods with attack helicopters. It's hard to imagine how we, the biggest outsider of them all, are not affecting elections. Now I'm not going to sympathize for Iran or Syria any time soon, but let's at least be honest with ourselves.

27 September 04

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