UN Pays Bloggers For Saving Its Face: Let's See Who Are The Real Blog Shills

I have just rejected USD $ 80 for the following advertisement from the United Nations Foundation entitled: "Ensuring Credible and Fair Elections".

I honestly do no think Iraqis are having the possibility to have credible and fair elections in the terror climate they are themselves victim of. The UN Foundation itself chimes in by stating on the page linked by the advertisement that it "is not responsible for supervising, monitoring, or making key decisions in the elections."

So, after having been unable to hold the US accountable for making the Iraq war happen without respect for international treaties and having allowed this ongoing unwarranted occupation of this nation, why should I support the UN in this?

Because they give me USD $ 80?
Here is the time to see who the true blog shills are. Can you see any around?

 

 

More info:

Of a total population of 25,374,691 (CIA - July 2004 est.)" Iraqis about 50% of them, or 12.5 million, have been actually registered for elections. The UN Foundation does not state in its informative page the total population qualifiyng for vote in Iraq.

In the Iraqi election there are 257 political entities registered, 19,000 total candidates and 111 registered parties from which to select from. (Of the above 7,785 candidates, are standing for the national elections).

Where is the information about these candidates, their political programme and goals, and how did the Iraqi population learnt about them?

No information is provided by the UN Foundation about the number of Shiite groups, Sunni Arab groups, Kurdish groups as well as representatives from other tribes and minority religious sects that are actually represented in this Iraqi election and the proportion of these relative to the size of these groups in Iraq.

The UN Foundation itself states "Because of security fears, few of the candidates have been named publicly. However, in the final days before January 30th the election commission will publish a complete list of the candidates in the Iraqi press."

Would you go voting in a occupied with despite high security risks?

Could you vote for candidates that have had to remain anonymous until the election day?

Who are the neutral parties monitoring the vote submission and scrutiny?

The UN Foundation propaganda piece goes on to say: "because of ongoing violence in Iraq many foreign nations that had committed neutral observers are now refusing to send them."

And also states: "the UN helped to build local consensus and form the necessary coalitions within Iraq for a peaceful transition of power from the U.S.-led occupying forces to the current interim government."

Always in the same document: "the UN provided support for the formation of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq and the recruitment and training of 900 IECI staff."

Also for these people it is impossible to know their identities (clearly for security reasons) but it is not clear to me why statistics about the representation of the different ethnic groups, which is at the heart of the Iraqi political turmoil, are unavailable. How can I assess fairness of this commission if theire is no transparency about its ethnic composition?

UN Foundation Board of Directors.

Why does the UN Foundation have to run such a campaign?

What are the risks it may run into if it doesn't?

What pieces of information is the UN providing me with that could comfort us with the notion that the vote emerging from this elections does really represent what the different ethnic groups of Iraq really want?

Whose interests is the UN really defending with this campaign?

Think.