New Dawn of Democracy

[Panther]

Despite some limited violence (Zarqawi & his group have claimed responsibility for the bombings that killed a total of 31 people), it looks like well over 70% turnout nationwide with some areas having a 95% voting rate! There were even pictures of 800-1000 people standing in line to vote in Fallujah. Free elections for the first time in ~50 years and the very first time that Iraqi women have been able to vote. Some pictures show the Iraqi women turning out in droves. Looks like a job well done by the troops to secure the vote and the turnout shows both that the Iraqi people believe in the U.S. troops and that the vast majority of the Iraqi people want this democracy.


(Actually, they have a constitution, so it would be an elected constitutional republic...)

[MikeK]

The Kerry/Kennedy crowd is squawking about how "we must wait and see". Oddly enough I don't remember them saying that about democracy in Haiti.
I hope the Iraqi's choose well and do their best to make it work. I think today was a great start.

[Bill Glasheen]

it looks like well over 70% turnout nationwide with some areas having a 95% voting rate!

Actually all reports I have heard (NBC, ABC, Fox) put the total at somewhere between 50% and 60%. But still...that's better than many U.S. elections where votors don't have to worry about threats of being killed in front of their children, beheaded, bombed, tortured, etc.

Heck...the whining losers in the last U.S. elections were crying foul because they had to stand in line for hours. Oh yea? Are some Americans less enthusiastic about participating in democracy than these voters in Southern Iraq?



The only weak spots were two cities in the Sunni triangle. But then again, the Sunnis had the most to lose in a government with proportional representation. And it is their constitutional right in a free society NOT to vote.

Bottom line - this is more than impressive. It's absolutely phenomenal. Furthermore, this kind of participation is both validation of the process of liberation as well as an active "thanks" from the Iraqi people for all the U.S. resources sent and lives lost.

Better yet... How many detractors of the concept of Arab self rule could even have conceived of the U.S. being the reason for the following scenes?





Women voting in the heart of the Middle East? Waiting in long lines? Unthinkable, the detractors said.

And what to do when al-Zarqawi says that they have to stop the election at all costs? Kill all who participate? Threaten to bomb all the polling places? Easy...forbid auto traffic on the street.

And did that stop people from voting? Apparently not.



Furthermore, it created a really cool massive playground for the Iraqi kids.



Even the elderly found a way to take part in history.





Iraqi people intimidated by the thugs? Hardly. Looks like a friggin party to me - 9 car bombings and all!

The Kerry/Kennedy crowd is squawking about how "we must wait and see".

Kennedy had his oversized head on television demanding immediate withdrawal of over 10,000 troops. Even Kerry thought that was wrong. (source: Meet the Press, 1/30/05)

Kennedy says...

While the elections are a step forward, they are not a cure for the growing violence and resentment of the perception of an American occupation ... I continue to believe that the best way to demonstrate to the Iraqi people that we have no long-term designs on their country is for the administration to withdraw some troops now and to begin to negotiate a phase-down of our long-term military presence.

Yada, yada, yada...

Kerry says.

It is hard to say that something is legitimate when whole portions of the country can't vote and doesn't vote.

You know what the real problem is here? They can't friggin' stand it. They were detractors. They whined and whined about U.S. intentions and the morality of the overthrow of Saddam. They fretted over the elections being held (gasp) on time (the way we people who do real work in industry must perform). They questioned the sacrifice of lives, and the spending of resources.

Meanwhile, democracy is breaking out in the friggin' heart of the Middle East. Keep the momentum up, and next thing you know Iraq's neighbors will be asking why they can't have the same.

And then what moral ground will the terrorists have to stand on?

Yes, it is early in the game. But to hell with all who said it couldn't be done. This is a BIG score. It's time to spike the football and do a little dance. It's time to flip an ink-stained finger to al qaeda et al!



And let the press and detractors penalize for excessive celebration. We've heard enough of the drivel. Fuk 'em all, I say!

- Bill

[RACastanet]

Even Dan Rather called the turnout a success! He could not deny the turnout.

Rich

[Rick Wilson]

True bravery. A proud day.

[benzocaine]

They whined and whined about U.S. intentions and the morality of the overthrow of Saddam. They fretted over the elections being held ( gasp ) on time (the way we people who do real work in industry must perform). They questioned the sacrifice of lives, and the spending of resources.

I wouldn't call it whining. It's comforting that some people question sending our boys and girls to die. Those boys and girls are more than a statistic..it's our best friend,son,daughter.. and to be honest the only reason I wanted Iraq invaded was to prevent terrorists from getting WMD...you know have our soldiers defend the constitution of the United States.(not the Iraq constitution)

[benzocaine]

I do have to admit, it's very exciting to see democracy in it's infancy there in Iraq. Hopefully the world will be a better place because of this, lest the blood of our soldiers be for nothing.

It's encouraging that the polls were gaurded by Iraqis and not Americans.

I hope the new government they voted in is a good one.

[Bill Glasheen]

I know your heart, and I know you mean well, Ben.

to be honest the only reason I wanted Iraq invaded was to prevent terrorists from getting WMD...you know have our soldiers defend the constitution of the United States.(not the Iraq constitution)

I hope we both live long enough for you to see the historical significance of what has just happened, Ben.

This IS about defending the constitution of the United States. Our freedom is NOT free. We cannot be free and our liberties cannot be safe if there is opression and tyrrany elsewhere in the world. That becomes a cancer that metastasizes and infects all freedom-loving people.

Rick speaks of the bravery of the Iraqi people. These are the kinds of sacrifices they must endure when they show up to vote. This man (who survived) was shot in the face by an insurgent just for exercising his constitutional right.



Our own ignorance of the opression of others in the Middle East creates the 9/11's that make us wonder what the hell just happened.

Al qaeda does not rise from spotaneous generation. Fascism and intolerance begats fascism and intolerance. Bin Ladin and al-Zarqawi rose from the tyrrany of totalitarian regimes in Saudi Arabia and our ignorance of the plight of Afghanis and Iraqis.

One life lost is one life too many. But sacrifices must be made to prevent further bloodshed and - even worse - a loss of all the inalienable rights we fought so hard to achieve in the last 300 years.

It's time to be one of the good guys for a change, and not fund or support these despotic regimes. It's time to ignore old Europe and their know-it-all attitude about what can and cannot be achieved with Arab people.

There will be differences, Ben. But then we both are fighting for the right to express those differences not just here, but in places that are the breeding grounds of Islamic fascism.

And is it worth it? IMO, the pictures say it all.




Iraqi Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib


The picture above is of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani - the Shia cleric who pushed with the U.S. to have elections, and have them held on time.



A celebration convoy carrying votes from an Iraqi polling station. For those not familiar with what is going on, the masked man is a U.S.-trained Iraqi policemen. They have learned to mask themselves to prevent targeting of themsevles and their families by the insurgents.


Iraqi policemen celebrating the arrival of ballots from a polling station.



- Bill

[MikeK]

As the silent professionals say, De Opresso Liber.

If the Iraqi's run with the ball we passed to their country, this election could be a WMD for the terrorists. Osama and his boys can not be happy right now.

[cxt]

I look at the pictures above, the lengths that people who have been kept from having a voice in the running of their nation for so long.
Are willing to go to, simply to vote.

Makes me sad to think how much some folks in my own nation take it for granted.

[benzocaine]

It's time to be one of the good guys for a change, and not fund or support these despotic regimes.

Amen to that Bill.

I hope that man's corrupt nature doesn't spoil what could be a new begining in Iraq.

It certainly takes courage for people to go out and vote there, I agree.

Like I say, I hope this works because it would be a crime to shed so much of our peoples lives and so much money on something done based upon faulty intelligence.

[Bill Glasheen]

Part of an article from WSJ.com today.

- Bill

{snip}

What's happening in the Sunni enclaves of Adhamiya and Ammariya, where the residents are notoriously anti-American and sympathetic to insurgents? "None of the polling stations have opened here. The streets are desolate," said my friend, Ziad, from his home in Adhamiya around 3 p.m. "We haven't left the house." From Sadr City, a slum near Baghdad where loyalty to militant cleric Moqtada al-Sadr runs high, Ahmed Mukhtar, an Iraqi journalist friend called me in the afternoon to report with great excitement in his voice that polling stations were forced to bring extra ballot boxes.

"There are so many women voting, you wouldn't believe it, even more than men," he said. A mortar landed in a house behind a polling station in Sadr City, killing four people but the shock had not deterred voters, who were back in line an hour later. "This is the best day of my life."

The most astonishing news was that even some Sunni Muslims were voting. In some areas in the Sunni Triangle, like Samarra and Mahmoudiya, polling stations never opened, and in other places like Tikrit, voters were scarce. But Abu Munaf, our driver, called his brothers -- all of them former army generals and ex-regime Baathists who live in the Ghazalliya district of Baghdad, a home to many former army officers. He was amazed to discover they were speaking to him from the line outside a polling station. "This is unbelievable. The general has gone to vote," he exclaimed when he hung up the phone.

For me, one of the most extraordinary moments was watching Haqqi, my long-time translator, cast his ballot. Haqqi is from Tikrit and comes from a tribe related to Saddam Hussein. Until the fall of Baghdad, he had lived all of his 26 years enjoying privileges unknown to most other Iraqi families.

The son of an ambassador, he grew up abroad and was educated in international private schools. He drives a Mercedes and speaks impeccable English. He and I argue often and passionately about events in Iraq. He criticizes everything and anything since the fall of the regime; I point out that under Saddam he couldn't work for an American newspaper or so much as voice his opinion.

All along, as he followed me to interviews and press conferences, his attitude was dismissive and pessimistic. Then yesterday, half an hour before the polling center closed, he had a change of heart. I heard him pleading with election workers to allow him to vote out of his district. He had never bothered to pick up his registration form.

"I really want to vote," I heard him say. "I didn't before, but coming here today and seeing old people, handicapped and women and men vote made me feel very nationalistic. I am Iraqi. I have a right to decide the future. Please let me vote."

The election worker smiled and handed him a ballot sheet. Afterwards he simply said, "It was great," and quickly made a phone call to the rest of our staff encouraging them to rush over and cast a ballot.

Election Day was the most uplifting moment I've witnessed in the two years that I've been stationed in Iraq. I was here for the last Iraqi election, in October 2002, when Saddam held a referendum to solidify his rule. Then, there was one name on the ballot, and rejecting him meant retaliation no one dared to even ponder. At a polling station in Tikrit that day, the crowd broke into cheers and dances as soon as our bus full of journalists approached. Voters poked their hands with needles to pledge their alliance to Saddam with their blood. It was a formidable show, but obviously not genuine.

Since then, I have marked many milestones in Iraq since the war officially began in March 2003 -- fall of the regime, killing of Saddam's sons Uday and Qussay, formation of the Governing Council, the capture of Saddam, the handover of sovereignty to an interim government and now the creation of a national assembly. None has captured the attention and imagination of Iraqis the way yesterday's elections did.

Iraqis viewed those events with the skepticism and suspicion they always do for things forced upon them by an outside hand -- in this case the Americans. It's difficult to predict what yesterday's election will mean in the coming months. The new government will continue to battle a raging insurgency, while negotiating a new constitution in hopes it will help restore the war-torn nation.

But one thing is clear: Iraqis have finally broken from the past.

Write to Farnaz Fassihi at farnaz.fassihi@wsj.com

[IJ]

It was lovely to see the killers declare war on democracy. They're very clearly stating they're at war with their own people and have a very low opinion of them if they're unwilling to give them a voice. They helped paint a more accurate picture of what is going on--it actually IS thugs against freedom, not just thugs against an occupying army. And doubly great they were unable to interfere with even a widely publicized event they had months to plan for. F you, terrorists! Haha.

That said... establishing a legitimate government of Iraqis by Iraqis even if it goes smoothly is NOT going to resolve the business of the thugs. They want to live in the stone age, and here, the great satan is bringing freedom (that which begot bikinis, game boys, MTV, sex, drugs, and rock n roll) right into their home country. There is (are) potential revolution(s) in neighboring countries, and there's going to be a lot of angry people for a long time. These people will never understand the world like we do. We're going to have to wait for them to die... and try to teach their children. Get ready for a long, long ride.

[Mills75]

Happy to see the passion for freedom in so many.By the way I wouldn't doubt it if Ted Kennedy was the insurgent who shot the guy in the face for voting..Before they cried not enough troops now apparently we have to many.I hate to truly feel this way but I think some for pure satisfaction in the political world would love to see or do anything they could to see the new free days of iraq fail miserably.we know deep down some folks in politics aren't as thrilled as they would lead you to believe about the big voter turnout and the positive signs on election day.sad but I feel it's true and why would we pull out troops right now so they can quickly assasinate the new leader and his government and Ted can once again look like he was right all along..flip-flop lol...flip-flop...lol

[IJ]

Actually, he has an alibi... was seen in Taxachusetts undermining freedom and democracy at the time of the shooting

Sadly there are enough f-ups in the mideast, including flip flops, to go round. Overall our record has been Arm! Disarm! Friend! Foe!