The Iraq war became the Albatross around the neck of the Bush Administration, and the Republican Party as a whole. It proved to be a heavy burden indeed. But if Bush has to take the blame for the expense, loss of life, and other terrible things that war brings with it, he also gets the credit for what went right.
The Iraqis just conducted a peaceful, orderly election. You would hardly know it for all the attention that the press has given it. Here is Kimberley Kagan and Frederick W. Kagan in the Wall Street Journal:
When the surge in Iraq began in January 2007, no one imagined that two years later Iraq would plan and conduct provincial elections with limited Coalition assistance and presence, that those elections would proceed smoothly and peacefully, and that the United Nations special envoy would be able to certify its legitimacy immediately. Nor could anyone have dreamt that the news story would be not the smoothness and peacefulness of the polling, but its results and the prospects they offer for political progress in Iraq.
I would add that, when the Twin Towers fell, it would have been hard to imagine that, eight years later, there would be a legitimate and fully functional election in Iraq. It is perhaps an open question whether a non-democratic government can adequately do what governments are for: serve the interests of the governed. But it's not a very practical question. Democracy is the only form of government that forces the people in power to serve the people as a whole. For most if not all states, the achievement of a functioning democracy and the achievement of even a minimally successful government go hand in hand.
It has been an open question whether real democracy is compatible with Islam. Turkey manages it, but one has had to wonder whether this might be a national idiosyncrasy. Last week's election in Iraq suggests otherwise. The Iraqi government managed the election largely on its own, without any build up of American forces. People brought their children with them to vote. No bombs went off.
Even better was the outcome. One fear haunting our policy has been that democracy in Islamic countries would only mean the victory of militant Islamists. In many places, that might be true. But it wasn't true in this place, this time round.
Iraqi voters chose nationalist, secularist parties over religious parties by a wide margin. In the mostly Shiite south, candidates associated with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa Party appear to have gained significantly. This outcome is noteworthy because Dawa came to power in the 2005 elections with virtually no grass-roots support or organization. Few would have predicted Mr. Maliki's electoral success even a year ago.
Moqtada al-Sadr, by contrast, relied on grass-roots support for his movement and seemed poised to dominate elections in the south a year ago. But he lost much of his popular support when Iraqi Security Forces defeated his militias in Basra, Baghdad and Maysan in June 2008. The door was open for the well-organized Iraqi Supreme Islamic Council (ISCI), the clerically dominated party that had controlled many important provincial governorships and councils in the south. Yet Iraqis voted instead for Mr. Maliki's coalition or for the secular Shiite coalition of former prime minister Iyad Allawi.
When Iraq held its last national elections, circumstances were dire. Militants had threatened the lives of everyone who dared to vote, but the Iraqi people defied them. One of my favorite photos of the decade shows an Iraqi woman, hooded and veiled, proudly holding her purple finger aloft. That was proof that she had voted.
The American occupation of Iraq concentrated the mind of Al Qaeda and other murderous nihilists in the region. We were told that our invasion of Iraq was a great recruiting tool for the terrorists. Well, they recruited and deployed. George W. Bush, and the people of Iraq, met them and defeated them. The fruits of that victory may be many, but a big ripe one is an Iraq election unstained by fear. Bush 43 may have a lot of regrets, but he has at least one big thing to be satisfied by. Journalist used to ask, wringing their hands and grinding their teeth, what could victory in Iraq look like? This would be it.
I'm fervently praying that the population in Iraq has seen the hate, the violence, the murders, maimings, rapes and beheadings enough to realize fully the barbaric, hate and murdered filled alleged religion they have been fed for 1400 years in the very clear light of day and that they will study it and realize once they realize the true efforts and desires of it's alleged prophet mohammed were nothing more than the desires and wishes, 'though much broader and more dangerous to the entire world' of Hitler and his rale in planned attempt to rule the world and control each and every member of humanity, both male and female. If they truly read and count the numbers of revelations contained in this koran, seeing and numbering the teachings of hate, human rights abuse, murder of anyone who doesn't believe the lies; they would realize logically and intelictually that mohammed created this ideology and each and every one of it's revelations from it's alleged god, allah in order to rule, control all believers and to make it possible for him to do all the robbing, raping, killing, pillaging and whatever other perversion he happened to that day want to do. His revelations about his marriage to alisha wherein it made it ok for him to child molest an underage female were timed down to the day in which they were needed. His follower questions his desire to wed and bed aisha bring up the question is it right to literally child molest an underage female; thereby the next day, after expediently having a revelation overnight on this particular issue, allah oks this perversion coincidentally right when mohammed needs it. mohammed made up each and every mandate, law, revelation in order to control his surroundings and create a realm in which he could do just whatever his needs and perversions required. If intellectual arabs and other cultures with this desease ideology amongst them, would openly and honestly read, study and review the history and actions of mohammed and the followers of his left behind and in control of the alleged religion and their own histories of control, hatred, murder, robbing, pillaging and the child molestation of uderage females all for the express purpose of making islam and their rule supreme throughout the current realm and the globe; making their violence and perversion proper in the eyes of their followers. Any intelligent human being has to see the fraud and reasons for it, in the light of what all the creators of it, it's teachings, alleged book and practices mantain in the end; complete control of peoples lives in ever aspect of them. That's what mohammed wanted, that's what those leading this ideology have wanted since it's inception and that's what they have mantained by strength of the sword, whether those swords are bombs, human bombs or the atomic kind.
Posted by: wileysnakeskins | Saturday, February 07, 2009 at 01:50 PM