You decide if the vote is important to Iraqis

[sq764]

http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050130/2005-01-30T141229Z_01_BAK023473_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-IRAQ-ELECTION-SCENE-DC.html

Facing suicide attacks and killings, they come out in millions??

Do these sound like people who don't care about an election or freedom?

Sec,LJC, Zilzal, I await to hear you explain to the contrary..

[CryingForTheHorses]

I really feel for these poor people! MOST voting for the first time in their lives! Braving bombs and bullets these people came in the thousands to have their say.Thanks to the USA and others to make this possible.I would also think this is a LARGE victory for the military for Pres Bush.Sadly many have lost their lives for this moment in history.Its only a matter of time for this war to be over! This shows the Iraqi's really want to mould with the rest of the world.

[Tom]

Elections in Afghanisan, Iraq, Paelstine, Ukrane - people refusing to allow rigged elections, people braving death to vote. The wheels of liberty are rolling. It will spread This was not so much a victory for us as it was for them.
And who else but John Kerry was out there today trying to dampen the moment. And Kennedy last week disparaging the whole process. Perhaps these too rejects could get married to each other and keep thier bickering in their bedroom. Both have been rejected by Americans in the past-neither has the sense to shut up.
Other losers today - Kaffi Anan and the UN who never lifted a finger to help and ran like little girls at the first sign of trouble.
Both Kerry andKennedy do no tlike election becasue poeple make thier wishes known by votes. Bothwould rather just tell us what is good for us and trust them to take care of us.

[PaceAdvantage]

A picture is always worth a thousand words:

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20050130/capt.lon11501301126.iraq_elections_lon115.jpg

After all car movements were prohibited, thousands of Iraqis make a trip on foot to the town of Al Alamara, Iraq (news (http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/ap/photos_wl_beta//14141533/*http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news?fr=news-storylinks&p=%22Iraq%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw) - web sites (http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/ap/photos_wl_beta//14141533/*http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=web-storylinks&p=Iraq)), to place their votes Sunday, Jan. 30 2005. Iraqis turned out to vote Sunday in their country's first free election in a half-century, defying insurgents who launched deadly suicide bombings and mortar strikes at polling stations. By midday, at least 29 people were dead but the violence had slowed and voting picked up.

[JustRalph]

Ted Kennedy and the like are feeling like losers. Their so called supporters are running and hiding.................Fools!

[betchatoo]

First a disclaimer:

I still vehemently believe the invasion of Iraq was both wrong and ill conceived. I have seen people now stating in other threads that it wasn't just because of WMD and terrorist ties that we invaded. That was, in fact, the stated reason and had to be in order to justify a preemptive strike. Either Iraq had to prove an imminent threat because of their weaponry or we needed to have intelligence that Sadaam was sending terrorists in to hurt our country or we had no legal or moral grounds to attack this country. No proof of either was ever established. I am firm in my conviction of this and of the fact that the administration had no viable exit strategy when they began. And no typical 14 paragraph answer from Boxcar will change that opinion.

That being stated, I was happily proved wrong about the immediate effects of this first election. This quoted article from The Washington Post shows profiles in courage. I fervently hope the people there get the type of government they deserve. I am going to print the entire article since it takes a subscription to read and I know some of our members balk at giving information to certain sites.


Even in the Wake of Suicide Blast, 'They Didn't Want to Go Back Home'

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, January 31, 2005; Page A01

BAGHDAD, Jan. 30 -- The young man wore a winter jacket over his explosive vest and approached the polling station with his hands in the pockets.

"Take your hands out of your pockets," said Ali Jabur, the Iraqi police officer in charge of patting down voters on the street outside. The young man obliged by throwing his arms wide, and blew them both to bits.

Three hours later, in streets still littered with the bomber's remains, some very determined voters streamed into the Badr Kobra High School for Girls, intent on casting the ballots that they called a repudiation of the terrorist attacks meant to scare them away.

"I would have been happy to have died voting at the time of this explosion, because this is terrorism mixed with rudeness," said Saif Aldin Jarah, 61, a balding man with white hair who leaned on his daughter, Shyamaa, as he shuffled into the afternoon sunlight after casting his ballot.

"When terrorism becomes aimless and without a goal, it becomes rudeness," Jarah said, holding aloft a finger stained purple with indelible ink. "How could they force people not to vote?"

The question was answered emphatically in Baghdad's Zayuna neighborhood.

The blast at the high school killed five people and wounded seven. It blackened the pavement and brought a U.S. Army patrol racing to the tidy streets of an upper-middle-class neighborhood named for a developer's daughter.

It also could have accomplished here what Abu Musab Zarqawi, whose organization asserted responsibility for 13 suicide attacks Sunday, vowed to do all over Iraq: derail the election.

When the suicide bomber at the high school struck shortly before 11 a.m., the polling site had been growing busy after a slow start. But Hadi Saleh Mohammed, the election official in charge, felt he had no choice but to close it down. There were the wounded to evacuate, a gruesome mess to clean up, security to reassess.

While all that went forward, the voters stood at the end of the block, waiting.

"They wanted to come back in," Mohammed said. "They didn't want to go back home."

Why not?

"First, people want to stop this terrorism that's breeding in this country. Second, the religious leadership wanted people to vote. And third, people have had enough of time wasted. They want to get their permanent government."

So the polling place reopened. On the advice of the U.S. troops, the security perimeter was pushed back a block, so people could be frisked twice before entering the school.

Though performing this duty meant standing amid flecks of the flesh of the last officer who had the job, there were volunteers. In stepping forward to do the first round of pat-downs themselves, local residents explained that they could raise the alert if another suspicious stranger approached.

"The police might not be able to recognize residents; we know them better," said Zaid Abdulhamid, an electronics merchant. He was stationed at the head of an alley blocked by the trunk of a date palm, the all-purpose roadblock in Iraq. The Arabic words spray-painted on the surrounding walls read: "No to America. No to occupation" and "Death to anyone who hates Iraq."

"We want to protect ourselves," Abdulhamid said.

And so, after about an hour, voting resumed.

Najila Amin, a housewife who felt the massive blast in her home, made her way to the scene of the crime.

"We're used to explosions," she said. "It's normal."

What surprised her, Amin said, was the steady stream of people walking past her window toward the school. Twenty people were in the street at any moment, stepping carefully in places the street cleaners had missed.

"I didn't expect such numbers," said Amin, 50, who fastened her head scarf so it showed no hair. "It makes me feel people want to protect themselves and have a government that can protect us."

Her companion on the walk to the polls, Taiyma Jamal, 26, said the turnout represented a vote against the insurgency. "People want to be free," she said.

Nawar Khadim Ahmed had gone home after seeing the man explode as he raised his arms. By 3 p.m., he was back to vote, carrying his 2-year-old daughter, Noor.

"We have to bury this chaos now and form a government," he said. "This is the time that we make a stand."

Ahmed, an auto mechanic, said he cast his vote in support of Ayad Allawi, the interim prime minister.

"Power," Ahmed said, when asked the reason.

"Don't you want education?" asked Sabah Abdullah Rahman, a retired fighter pilot standing nearby.

"We want power and education," Ahmed said. "He's an educated man."

Rahman nodded. "The Iraqis believe Allawi is a realistic, strong man," he said.

The American troops left after a couple of hours, handing off security to an Iraqi National Guard major and at least a dozen Iraqi police officers, most of them in street clothes.

"This doesn't stop the process," said Sgt. Tahsin Hassan, carrying a pistol in his belt and wearing a look of deep fatigue. The vest bomber had been Hassan's third close call. He had survived a car bombing in the "triangle of death" south of Baghdad that killed two policemen and a roadside bombing that killed two civilians right here in Zayuna.

As he spoke, shots from an assault rifle sounded not a block away. The sentries looked around, but no one on the street so much as flinched, not even a child of 4 clutching his father's hand on the way to the polls.

"We've had enough of this situation," Hassan said. "It becomes normal to us.

"We hear after the elections the situation will stabilize. People want stability."

[lsbets]

Bet,

While I vehemently disagree with you on the reasons for the war, my intent is not to argue them in this thread. I only want to let you know that I respect the fact that you can celebrate the elections in Iraq. I really respect that, because too many from the liberal side won't say anything good about anything if it might make Bush look good. Thank you.

[betchatoo]

LS:

I believe that life is almost as real as racing. And to be a winner you have to look at things the way they are, not as you supposed they would be.

I was surprised by the Iraqi turnout and enthusiasm. God bless them, may their democracy work and if it makes Bush look good so be it (God that was hard to say)

[so.cal.fan]

Did anyone see Sen. Joe Lieberman on Hannity and Colmes last night?
He was elated about the elections and saddened by Teddy and Kerry's negativity........he spoke for Democrats like myself.
Winston Churchill and Neville Chamberlin had debates in 1939.Chamberlin was a pacifist who believed Hitler could be appeased.
He was WRONG......he was on the wrong side of history.
My husband who was in England at the time.....remembers Chamberlin getting off a plane in London, waiving a piece of paper signed by him and Hilter, shouting "peace in our time".........we all know what happened.
Someday history will judge our war against terrorists. Only time will tell what the right action was........our bets are on what the United States is doing.
Just like my husband, who was a very young man at the time.....believed Winston Churchill.....not Neville Chamberlin,was right.
For the two disgraceful senators from Mass. to be "sharing" their negative views at this time........well......I have little hope that we can elect Democrats who can help our country like Sen. Lieberman would have.

[JustMissed]

Hey, this is beginning to look great for Bush.

+70% Iraqis voting for the first time--what a mandate for Bush.

The DemLibs can't stand it. They are like a deer caught in the headlights and they don't know what to do.

I hope and pray the DemLibs will think long and hard when choosing their new leadership for DNC chairman. This is very critical for the survivial of their party.

We need a strong two party system and the DemLibs are looking more and more like girlie-men. What a shame.

JM

[Tom]

SoCalFan.....people like Liebernam are the hope for your party. Most dems I now in the real world are not like the 9 stooges we have here. They are thinking, caring people who have different ideas of how things should be done that I do. If you were to list all my core beliefs, I would have many liberal based beliefs. I hope you guys get rid of the wack-o leaadership and rebuild you party - we have to have viable alternatives to vote for.
Myself, I support Chuck Schummer, a democrate, in NY. I am impressed with Joe L. and other dems have good ideas.

[so.cal.fan]

Tom,
the issue of TERRORISM......TRUMPS all other concerns about the Bush administration.

[ElKabong]

SCF,

I hope as much as you do (believe it or not :) ) that the Dems get a prez candidate of Joe L's ilk for the next go-around in 2008. This past election we were robbed of a choice. Kerry was no option.

Poor Joe L was stabbed in the back by the DNC. First, his old running mate Al Gore endorsed Howie Dean (llloser) then the DNC became even moreso moveon.org-esque. I didn't like Joe L that much in 2000, but I came to respect him greatly after 9-11..He was one of the few Dems nationally that understood our world changed forever on that day. I really wish he had gained the nomination.

Seems the Dems are pulling that much farther from the center, even after W's win over Kerry. What I'm wishing for is another repub drubbing vs the dems in '06 so the DNC can finally figure out they have to move to the center, by A LOT, before reasonable folks consider voting dem again, nationally.

We need 2 viable choices next time....Hoping for the best!!

[Secretariat]

SoCalFan.....people like Liebernam are the hope for your party. Most dems I now in the real world are not like the 9 stooges we have here. They are thinking, caring people who have different ideas of how things should be done that I do. If you were to list all my core beliefs, I would have many liberal based beliefs. I hope you guys get rid of the wack-o leaadership and rebuild you party - we have to have viable alternatives to vote for.
Myself, I support Chuck Schummer, a democrate, in NY. I am impressed with Joe L. and other dems have good ideas.

Tom, i'd vote for Bush before Joe Lieberman.

[JustRalph]

Tom, i'd vote for Bush before Joe Lieberman.

and that is the problem with your party, in a nutshell...............