February 2005
A Vote of Conscience and Courage posted: 2-01-05
Millions of Iraqis Defy Death Threats
When I got home from work Saturday night (of course I turned on the telly) I was reminded that this was the long awaited election day in Iraq. It was very early morning / pre-dawn in Iraq - as the cable news commentators began discussing the impending historical moment.
Huge hopes combined with extensive preparations by election officials, Iraqi police and military and coalition forces were all focusing on the 8:00am opening of the polls.
Skeptics predicted dire consequences. Democrats suggested that it was a doomed process - of the few willing to brave the gauntlet - many would be murdered. The results of such an unevenly participated election would be invalid. Terrorists proclaimed that voters would be executed; the streets would run red with blood - husbands, wives and children would all be beheaded. This would be another example of President Bush's failed leadership.
I watched, fearfully expecting horrific explosions to rip thru the bodies of these civilians; men, women and children.
Eight o'clock came and went and some polling stations reported that not only were there no voters . . . even the election officials failed to show up.
Shots and explosions could be heard in the distance. Where were the people? Didn't they want to be free? Maybe it was to much to ask - were there none brave enough to stand up for freedom?
Yes! There were Millions! In polling places across Iraq, hundreds followed the first cautious voters. Friends and families walked miles down the middle of muddy village streets past bombed out buildings. Their faces reflected the gravity of this moment. Some were clearly afraid. Others put on a cheerful front; a family outing. There were crutches and wheel chairs, elderly and children. Others were somber - seeming to remember the suffering of so many, the deaths of so many, the tyranny they endured for generations. Today the people could stand up and take back their country.
As the lines grew, the voters expressions changed from anxious to joyful. Less fearful, they held up their inked index fingers - their badge of courage and honor. Face after face welled with tears as they described how important this moment was for them.
And my eyes welled up and overflowed as I witnessed this extraordinary moment. There were so many poignant moments. There was the elderly woman in black veil who went to the US troops - thanking them tearfully and saying that she prayed for them. So many thought they would never live to see this day - when they would be free to choose their destiny.
Many times I have doubted the Iraqi's ability to comprehend, to appreciate or value the freedom of a democracy. Our country was investing so much - lives and money - to give them a free country - such a priceless gift . . . a gift they didn't seem to want.
How many of us - that is those of us who even bother to vote - would have the courage to walk with our families for miles down such streets - knowing that at any moment our entire family might be cut down - literally beheaded?
On election day - a new Iraq was born - the Iraqi people were re-born.
It may be a week or so before the number of voters and the results of the election are known. But, estimates range in excess of 8 million Iraqis who walked to polling stations across Iraq.
What will the terrorists do now? Will they make good on their threats and murder entire families? Surely not? Such acts would enrage the Iraqi population and greatly unite them against these monsters. But I have learned not to be surprised by the range of stupidity the terrorists take in their brutal inhumanity - in the name of allah.
"In the dirt-poor town of Sumawa, right on Iraq's southern border, a baby was born in a polling station to an expectant mother determined that nothing would stop her from casting a ballot.
In the holy city of Najaf, 80-year-old Mahdeya Saleh, dressed in a black abeya, declared: "I was often forced to vote under Saddam. Today, I come out of my own will to choose freely cast my voted."
And in Baghdad, Samir Hassan refused to let the security ban on private cars stop him from voting, despite losing his leg to a bomb last October. "I would have crawled here if I had to," he said. "I don't want terrorists to kill other Iraqis like they tried to kill me. Today I am voting for peace."
This election has given Iraq, for the first time in its history, a government representative of a majority of its people.
So in the largely Shia streets near the BBC bureau in Baghdad there was a euphoric atmosphere. One elderly man, in black and white keffayah, had tears in his eyes.
"My two sons were executed by Saddam," he said, "I am voting to make sure we never return to the old ways of doing things in Iraq." "
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4224435.stm
"Nine RAF personnel and one soldier are missing, believed dead, in the largest single loss of British life in Iraq since military action began." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4221521.stm
