Iraqi People Vote For Candidate Backed By The United States!

[Christians4LessGvt]

but they're not there to build schools, roads and hospitals either.

USAID Program Graduates 23 Midwives in Jawzjan Province
Skilled midwives will provide care to approximately 345,000 mothers and children.
Shibirghan, Jawzjan Province, Afghanistan  | Saturday, October 31, 2009



Photo: USAID/Uruj Perwaiz
These graduating midwives will reach 345,000 mothers and children throughout Jawzjan.

On October 18, Jawzjan province celebrated the graduation of 23 new midwives from a USAID-supported midwifery education program.  The skilled midwives will be deployed back to their communities and will work from health facilities, some of them in very remote areas.  They will provide care to approximately 345,000 mothers and children throughout Jawzjan, improving infant and maternal health while reducing mortality rates.

The recruitment and training of midwives throughout the country is central to improving maternal and child health in Afghanistan.  USAID funds eight of Afghanistan?s community midwifery programs and two hospital-based programs.  All programs are accredited by the National Midwifery Education Accreditation Board to ensure they maintain high professional standards.  Thanks to these programs and other health initiatives by U.S. and international donors, in partnership with the Ministry of Public Health, the infant mortality rate has fallen 22 percent since 2002.

http://afghanistan.usaid.gov//en/Article.871.aspx

[Christians4LessGvt]

but they're not there to build schools, roads and hospitals either.

One Step Closer to a Brighter Future
Kajaki Dam brings more power to the people of southern Afghanistan.
Kajaki Dam, Hilmand, Afghanistan  | Tuesday, December 30, 2008


Photo: USAID/Afghanistan
Kajaki Dam in Hilmand province.
 

Photo: USAID/Afghanistan
Governor Mangal speaking to press at the dam.

A convoy of 4,000 coalition troops spent one week fighting off insurgent attacks to
clear the way for the delivery of a powerful new turbine to the Kajaki Dam in
southern Afghanistan on September 2, 2008. 

The new turbine, plus the refurbishing of a second turbine, should triple the reliable
electric power output from 16.5 megawatts to 51 megawatts to Kajaki, Lashkar Gah,
and Kandahar.  Other work on the dam will provide water for homes, agriculture,
and industry for the 1.5 million people in the Hilmand River Valley, improving livelihoods
and spurring economic growth.

The Kajaki Dam was first constructed by USAID during the 1950s and two turbines were
installed in the 1970s. The delivery of this third turbine was the latest move by USAID
to rejuvenate a major US assistance project to supply 6% of Afghanistan?s electrical power.

Although the project itself is funded by the United States Government, the
implementation would not have been possible without the assistance of Afghan National
Security Forces and ISAF troops, including the UK, US, Canada, Denmark and Australia,
providing security to the convoy.

Part of the national priority program in Afghanistan is aimed at providing electricity
sufficient for residents, industries and commerce through harnessing the energy of water.
Kajaki is one element of the overall plan to develop the Hilmand Valley and a crucial part of the reconstruction efforts for Afghanistan. 

Functioning electrical and water supplies will enable farmers to produce higher yields,
will improve the services provided by community health facilities, and will provide children
light by which to read and learn.

http://afghanistan.usaid.gov//en/Article.492.aspx

[sirs]

[Michael Tee]

<<Yeah, I guess having armed German Wehrmacht stationed in the polling places, actually checking the ballots to make sure the Austrians "voted properly", was just "somewhat tainted".>>

First I ever heard that German soldiers checked the ballots in the polling stations, but I'm sure you have a source for it.  The conventional story is that the Germans rounded up their opponents immediately after the invasion and sent them all to concentration camps, then held the vote.  Kinda like the American invaders dragging tens or hundreds of thousands of poor unfortunate Iraqis out of their beds in the middle of the night, and torturing them to death in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo or more secret "black sites" and then holding "elections" which, mirabile dictu, are "won" by pro-American, pro-"democracy" candidates.

<<Got any evidence that the US did more than the Wehrmacht during the Anschluss vote to "taint" it? >>

ROTFLMFAO, no.  No, I don't have any evidence that the US were worse than the Nazis or the Nazis worse than the Americans when it comes to staging phony "elections" under the gun barrels of invading armies.  I don't have any evidence that Heinrich Himmler's shit stank any worse than Secretary Bill Gates' either.  I don't even have evidence that the torture chambers of Abu Ghraib or America's "black sites" were better or worse than those of Dachau, where most of the anti-Nazi Austrians were sent after the German invasion.  I guess that makes the Iraq "elections" as valid as the Anschluss plebiscite, and both of them models of democracy in action.

<<I had not heard that there were armed US forces checking each and every ballot in Iraq as the vote proceeded to make sure that everyone "voted properly"...>>

To which I guess any self-respecting Nazi or G.I. thug would have to reply, there's more than one way to skin a cat.  We can leave it at that.  Both invaders got what they wanted, didn't they?

[Amianthus]

First I ever heard that German soldiers checked the ballots in the polling stations, but I'm sure you have a source for it.

No, it's not the first time you heard about it, because I provided the source for it a number of years ago, while we were still on PIC.

[Michael Tee]

I still don't remember it, but I don't doubt your word.  So I forgot, BFD.

It seems like a particularly stupid way to rig an election, but I guess if they had anything but shit for brains, they wouldn't have been Nazis in the first place.

[Amianthus]

No, it's not the first time you heard about it, because I provided the source for it a number of years ago, while we were still on PIC.

Hell, it's common enough information that it's in Wikipedia. Also, the contrasting information that places the Wehrmacht had not yet consolidated voted overwhelmingly for independence, another fact that you conveniently "forget" unless I remind you periodically.

While historians concur that the result itself was not manipulated, the voting process was neither free nor secret. Officials were present directly beside the voting booths and received the voting ballot by hand (in contrast to a secret vote where the voting ballot is inserted into a closed box). In some remote areas of Austria the referendum on the independence of Austria on 13 March had been held despite the Wehrmacht's presence in Austria (it took up to three days to occupy every part of Austria). For instance, in the village of Innervillgraten a majority of 95 percent voted for Austria's independence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anschluss#German_troops_march_into_Austria

[sirs]

d'oh

[Michael Tee]

This is the usual bullshit propaganda we hear from all Austrians after the end of WWII. 

"Austria the reluctant bride."  Fucking bullshit then and fucking bullshit now. 

From the article that you yourself posted:  <<While historians concur that the result itself was not manipulated, the voting process was neither free nor secret. Officials were present directly beside the voting booths and received the voting ballot by hand (in contrast to a secret vote where the voting ballot is inserted into a closed box).>>

TRANSLATION:  By their ham-handed tactics, the Nazis massaged an 80% approval into a 99% approval.  BFD.

Note, BTW, that the "officials" who received each ballot by hand in the polling stations were magically transformed by your posts into armed soldiers of the Wehrmacht.

Newspapers and photos of the era, for example of the crowd of 200,000 Austrians deliriously welcoming Hitler in the Heldenplatz tell the story of Austria's marriage a lot more truthfully than the Nazi apologists' post-war "reluctant bride" fabrications.  Or were they all "trucked in" from Germany, over the border, to make their one appearance for the newsreel cameras? 

I remember other newsreels - - huge, well-dressed crowds of Viennese, men, women and children, laughing and jeering as Jews were rounded up at gun-point and forced to scrub the sidewalks with toothbrushes, sing like birds from trees and bushes, and crawl on all fours in the parks, forced to eat the grass like animals till they barfed it all up.  No, they couldn't have been Austrians either, especially the well-dressed matrons and their kids, they also had to have been bussed in from Germany, just to pose for the newsreels and then returned the same night, right?

Ever since the end of the war, the Austrians have been bombarding the dumb Americans with the same bullshit, the bad Germans forced the good Austrians into this union that nobody in Austria wanted and the dumb Americans ate it up like the grass those Jews were forced to eat in Vienna, only the dumb Americans digested it all whole, took in every lie and bullshit.  The village of Scheisskopf am Berg, 98% against Anschluss, all 37 of them, proving definitively that the whole fucking country was against Anschluss.  And the newsreels of the time?   

Newsreels?  What newsreels?  I didn't see any newsreels.

Too bad this bullshit doesn't work on people who know better, who know what really happened.

[Amianthus]

TRANSLATION:  By their ham-handed tactics, the Nazis massaged an 80% approval into a 99% approval.  BFD.

No, actually, the translation is that they counted the ballots that were handed in. But of course, with armed goons there to check every ballot to make sure every vote was "correct" it was a forgone conclusion. The result was not manipulated, the actual polling was manipulated, just as the article says.

"While historians concur that the result itself was not manipulated, the voting process was neither free nor secret."

I like how you missed the rest of the sentence; the voters were not able to cast a "free" vote - they had to vote for Anschluss.

[Amianthus]

Note, BTW, that the "officials" who received each ballot by hand in the polling stations were magically transformed by your posts into armed soldiers of the Wehrmacht.

Err, who do you think they were? UN observers? The Wehrmacht were the only Germans in the country in large numbers.

[Michael Tee]

The story that you yourself posted states that "officials" were present at the polling stations.  There is absolutely nothing to indicate that they were armed soldiers of the Wehrmacht.  Armed soldiers of an invading army or of any army are rarely if ever referred to as "officials."

<<Err, who do you think they were? UN observers? >>

Probably, members of the Austrian (pan-German) Nazi Party, or the German Nazi Party, or both.  Local or German Nazis with some civil service experience, local pro-Anschluss poll workers.

<<The Wehrmacht were the only Germans in the country in large numbers.>>

The article you posted mentions that Himmler and the SS were in Vienna ahead of the Wehrmacht to arrest local anti-Anschluss leaders.  I'm sure that if there weren't enough pro-Hitler Austrians in the regular civil service, the Nazis could easily have imported enough German poll-watcher to make up the deficiency, although I really doubt that would have been necessary.  The local (Austrian) Nazis seem to have been very well-organized and present at every level of Austrian society.


<<I like how you missed the rest of the sentence; the voters were not able to cast a "free" vote - they had to vote for Anschluss.>>

What YOU missed was that the result (Nazis win in a landslide) was not manipulated, since that result would have been the same had the polling been conducted freely and fairly, only the size of the landslide would have been different.  As a matter of fact, the full article also shows how Schussnig himself felt he had to rig his own aborted plebiscite against the Nazis by excluding voters under the age of 24, indicating that a really fair vote, in the estimation of the anti-Anschluss Austrian leader, WOULD have been pro-Anschluss.  

What you also seem to  have missed completely were the photos and newsreels of the day, which clearly and unmistakeably depicted both the joy of the Austrian people, as they welcomed their Lord and Saviour, Adolf Hitler into their country and their animalistic sadism  as they prepared the first of the torments of the Jews that would end in the gas chambers and furnaces of the Holocaust.  Well, you couldn't have missed them, really, you just obviously have no credible explanation for them which can fit  into the ridiculous fairy-tale that you have been constructing.

[Amianthus]

The local (Austrian) Nazis seem to have been very well-organized and present at every level of Austrian society.

Actually, many had been arrested 4 years earlier and most of the rest had fled to Germany when the Austrian Nazi Party was outlawed. You forget that a defacto coup occurred the night before the Wehrmacht crossed the border; two officials that Hitler pressured Schuschnigg into appointing essentially took over the government from Schuschnigg.

[Michael Tee]

LOL.  Still ignoring the newsreels and news photos that can't be swept out with the dust, I see.   Who ya gonna believe, me or your own lyin' eyes?

Whatever high-level pro-German Nazi Austrian leaders may have been arrested or fled into Germany four years earlier, it sure looks to me like there was no shortage of local enthusiasts.  Unless Dolfuss and/or his successor Schussnig were prepared to set up huge concentration camps, I seriously doubt that they had the capacity to lock up every single pro-German Nazi in the country, down to poll-watcher level or that these lower-level Nazis all fled into Germany.  There were plenty of them left to man the polling stations despite your ridiculous theory that all of them were arrested or self-exiled.

[Amianthus]

LOL.  Still ignoring the newsreels and news photos that can't be swept out with the dust, I see.   Who ya gonna believe, me or your own lyin' eyes?

I'll have to remember that you implicitly believe all the products of the Nazi propaganda machine.