The US State Department issued a statement today angrily condemning Syria’s presidential elections as a “disgrace” that don’t represent legitimate voting and will confer no credibility to presumptive winner President Bashar Assad.
Officials centered their complaints on the lack of real opposition candidates and massacres over the course of the last several years, along with the inability of people in rebel-held regions to vote.
If that sounds familiar, you probably remember Egypt holding an election a week ago under extremely similar circumstances. The US, comfortable with the military coup there and only vaguely concerned with the massacres in Cairo, has been comfortable with Gen. Sisi’s win over his coup-backing non-rival.
And while both Syria and Egypt’s elections were a foregone conclusion, they both seem positively Athenian in their democratic principles compared to the 2012 Yemen vote, in which Maj. Gen. Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the US-backed ruler, was “elected” in a single candidate vote in which voting “no” was not an option.
Hadi’s rubber stamp election was such a runaway success, by US standards, that President Obama declared it a potential “model” for the Middle East. If Syria is falling short of this model, it can only be in its presumptive victor not having been given an advanced imprimatur by the US.
Well said. Let's not forget Ukraine, where the recent "election" also had all the elements that the US condemned Syria for, and yet was fully backed by Obama and the US.
What a load of bullshit by the USG.
They have lost all rights to comment of Syria’s election when they support Ukraine coup and Egypt’s Army take over of the Civilian Governments of those two countries.
Bloody hypocrites is what they are.
Elections in Ukraine where only candidates of the Neo-Nazi parties sponsored by the USA and Europe were allowed to run after the illegal ouster of the democratically elected government was overthrown by force, is GOOD! Election of Assad in Syria by Syrians (not by mercenaries bought and paid for by the gulf states and by the USA) BAD!
Is there no end to American perfidy, meddling and hypocrisy?
"Is there no end to American perfidy, meddling and hypocrisy? "
No, it's the totality of the US foreign policy now.
I just wish that I could get Obama to come west just for a day. Fertilizer is quite expensive… but, if I could just have him here for one hour I would have enough B.S. to care for my garden for a year. So… please mr Obama come west that we can renew the B.S. for our gardens, that will do some good for the country.