Will They Vote?
It's the headline blaring across Drudge as well as the minds of any intellectual cognisant. Of course, it's in reference to the Iraq Elections. Whether you align yourself with the Right side of the aisle or the Left, no one can deny that sub-concious reverberation--that slow pecking away at our world reputation so heralded and propagandized by the Democrats that would be all but completely justified if these upcoming Iraq Elections fail. I can almost imagine President Bush, on one of his not-as-hectic hours sitting in an overstuffed magenta chair, staring off into space and deeply involved with the action taken under his command, and would it all be worth it? The Leader of the Free World, for one minute human, fingers perhaps fidgeting with a gold-laced knob on the side of the chair in the corner of one room as he ponders the potential success and likewise the repurcussions of failure due to the Iraq Elections. Whatever occurs, perhaps Fate is in control but these elections represent justification for simply being American in the eyes of the increasingly anti-American commune known as the World.
Transfer of Power
For the first time in many decades, the Iraqi people now hold the power to defeat terrorism and determine their own nation's path without torture chambers and rape camps. The main thing facing the Iraqis today are so-called "insurgents" (just a sugar-coated word for terrorists) who threaten suicide attacks at polls. Finally, this weary and oppressed people can rise up out of longterm suffering and silence and determine where they want to go and with whom. No more Saddam, no more Uday and Qusay. The Republican Guard (formed mostly of unwilling soldiers forced to either serve or die) is disbanded, the hilarious Iraqi Minister of Information now probably eating McDonald's at some undisclosed, Western location. The stage has been set for a power revolution. America removed the negative forces that it was able to with all of its military might. Now it is up to the Iraqis to finish the Reign of Terror and vote in the first real election in years. Will they vote?
As an Iraqi
Not many of us know what it was like to live under Saddam Hussein. Even with all of the horror stories from friends and family members of the Hussein regime, I too am in the dark as to fully comprehend the enormity of the terror the Iraqi people suffered as I was privileged to have been born here in the United States. Thank God.
We equate Auschwitz with death (and necessarily so) and Rwanda with genocide. However, what happened to 1-6 million Iraqis who disappeared under Saddam's reign? It was an Iraqi Holocaust. It was a Kurdish Holocaust. It was a human Holocaust. Some people simply cannot seem to understand this. No amount of debate or words can lessen lack of comprehension of moral matters or matters so inherently serious as mass evil. Whatever the case, I wonder if the Iraqis can muster the strength, energy, and hope to go to the polls and reassert their pride and Right to Exist upon the Map of Human Races. We, as Americans, have helped the Iraqi people say "no more." Now it is time for the Iraqis to say "never again." Will they vote?
Into the Fire
I doubt that anyone of us can comprehend what it would be like to be faced with death as a commonplace threat of going to the polls. I don't think I would be able to walk to the City Hall and cast a vote if there was the threat of some bomb going off at any given time. What we see here is the Human Spirit versus Innate Evil. Just like a Shakespeare play or any one of Sherlock's numerous investigation, this stage has a protagonist pitted against the Arch-Nemesis of Mankind--Terror.
Let us all remember over the next hours that what is done is done. Saddam is gone. Elections loom. It's time to hope and pray for the best and start attempting to feel some sort of hope and "go get 'em" for the Iraqis. They are on our side, after all.
