I protest.

A war to "free" Iraq.

Jeanne at Body and Soul suggests, "So the democracy in Iraq thing didn't work out too well, did it?" She is referring to this article in today's Washington Post: "Occupation Forces Halt Elections Throughout Iraq."

U.S. military commanders have ordered a halt to local elections and self-rule in provincial cities and towns across Iraq, choosing instead to install their own handpicked mayors and administrators, many of whom are former Iraqi military leaders.

Well, gee, that didn't last long, did it? While I don't necessarily believe that democracy is a necessary prerequisite for liberty, at the moment it would seem that Iraqis have neither. Adding insult to injury, it seems that the appointees are, by and large, people who either had close ties to the Ba'ath Party or who were military or police officers:

Ten weeks into the occupation, the cities and towns outside of Baghdad are largely administered by former Iraqi military and police officers and people who had close ties to the Baath Party. Iraqi generals and police colonels, for example, are now mayors of a dozen cities, including Samarra, Najaf, Tikrit, Balad and Baqubah.

The U.S. military contends that these people have been vetted and were not in leadership positions under the old government or associated with crimes it committed.

Jeanne finds that last bit "pretty difficult to believe" and I have to agree. As she says, "We're purging Baath Party members from universities and the oil industry (hmmmmmmm...) — two places where you'd expect to find plenty of people who just went along to keep their jobs — but we continue to get along just fine with the Baathist police and military, and even install them in power." In a former police state, these are exactly the people you would not want to appoint. Right?

Naturally, Iraqis are incensed by this:

In Najaf last week, several hundred demonstrators took to the streets to demand elections and the removal of Mayor Abdul Munim Abud, a former artillery colonel. The protesters' banners read: "Canceled elections are evidence of bad intentions" and "O America, where are promises of freedom, elections, and democracy?"

A damned good question and one that had better have an answer pretty damned quickly. This is just one more insult to a people who are no longer taking such insults idly.

"Fine, we embrace the Americans, we want to see the security. But we want them to move aside and let us have our own voices. We have waited a long time for this and we are growing tired of the waiting, okay?" (Nabel Darwish Mohamed, mayor of Balad, former colonel in the Iraqi police corps.)