You're a hero. You stand up for democracy, freedom, justice, and you don't give a hoot what the followers of Lork Pork Pork say. I get a thousand times more knowledge and insight reading blogs like Dean's World, the Queen of All Evil, Classical Values, and Alphecca, than I do reading what once was a great newspaper. This is a great day. And it's happening in the land where it all (civilization) started.
Hey Dean- saw the pictureof the little Kurd boy, dead, killed by saddam's chemical attacks during the al-Anfal. Havent forgotten it, and is teh reason why I support Pres Bush for having the cojones to do the right thing. As far as the crazy lefties, who hate America and who, unfortunately are overrepresented in academia, you already know what I my opinions about them are.
Thank you Dean, and your fellow bloggers in this fight. I was an innocent lamb who, though feeling uneasy at what I heard on the news, had no way to fight. Now I have facts, pictures, and other viewpoints that I take as sword and shield into the fray at my university. I cannot thank you enough.
I was late to the blogging of the cause, but not late to the cause itself. I have thought since the late 1990s that Saddam was a problem that we could not wait forever to address. I think that 20 years from now, the history books will conclude that January 30, 2005, was perhaps the most important day in the modern history of the Middle East.
From what I can tell, the attacks today were pretty much par for the course - in other words, what the MSM normally describes as a "wave of violence" in an Iraq that is "spinning out of control". The problem for the MSM today was that 8 million people went out to vote, and it looked mighty silly for them to try and spin it bad (which they did early on, but tended to stop, I guess, when someone in the control booth realised how stupid they all looked).
The terrorists have never been more than a pinprick upon the body of Iraq - capable of killing, but not even all that effective at that; and each time they've stuck their heads up to attack, we've whacked 'em but good...and now the Iraqi military/police forces are getting good at the whacking all on their own.
This is sweet vindication - but, still, not the end; a very long, and sometimes bloody, road lies ahead of us.
A.C., that's a tiny, little, bullshit, nit-picking point.
Oh, yes elections are held to create a government. What's his point? That Rome wasn't built in a day? That this isn't a movie, that once the Rebel Alliance blows up the Death Star, it won't automatically be smooth sailing after that?
Well no duh. That's what Dean and quite a few other folks (including yours truly) have been saying all along. More than a few people have quoted one of Churchill's classic sayings, that this process will take "blood, toil, tears, and sweat." That's one of our complaints with the anti-war whiners; they've been bitching that it's cost anything at all, while we've been pointing out that success will take a long time, with a lot of effort and treasure spent.
So all Kos is saying is "well, this is just one little election," with the unspoken implication that it's practically not worth noticing. This from the same people who have been predicting nothing but gloom and doom since day one.
If you haven't noticed, neither the Iraq elections nor the tsunami relief have gotten much attention from the lefty blogs. I guess it really kills them to either admit that Bush was right for once, or that his administration can do good things.
I did take a stroll over to DU, and they are still as stupid as ever; the usual litany of lies, half-truths and whines about Haliburton.
Personally, I don't think the left will ever recover from their Iraq debacle - they were so sure of themselves, now that it has all come a cropper they are just spinning around in a circle jerk...now lets see if they choose Howard Dean to play center over at the DNC...
AC - I don't think it's a fair point. :) In the last twenty years or so, it has almost always been the case that the first free election in a country has been cause for celebration: think any of the countries of Eastern Europe in 1990, South Africa, Bosnia after the war. (Cambodia, whose elections were not free in the same way, may be the exception which proves the rule).
Celebration in Iraq is warranted just as it was in those places. It is true that the success of the election does not per se imply the success of the democracy - one need only look at the bitter cynicism of today's east germans, or of many of those who fought in the anti-apartheid movement, to know that. But it is no less a milestone to be celebrated; and it would be churlish to prejudge the outcome when we don't even know the results yet. :)
I read somewhere a few minutes ago that of the 24 killed, 7 were suicide bombers themselves. So I guess we can lump the killers in as "victims." You subtract those 7 and you get 17.
17 divided by 8,000,000 = 0.00002125%
Using that same percentage multiplied by the American electorate (in the past election) of 120,000,000 voters gets 255. Would Americans consider our elections to be a fraud if a terrorist group killed 255 people on election day?
There are about 40,000 people killed on American highways every year. That is about 110 per day on average.
I wonder how many people died in traffic accidents on November 2nd - our election day. I wonder how many Americans were victims of a violent crime on November 2nd.
Pinpricks on the body politic of Iraq - that is all the terrorists can do; they can manage murder, but they cannot actually change events. They'd be completely dried up and blown away except for MSM and elitist carping about how we're going about killing them.
Andrew: I'd like, however, to pose a question to Dean: Do you think the people elected are fit to govern the country and unite it?
We don't even know yet who that is.
If you look at the history of the founding of our own country, or many others, you might find yourself asking how such a quarrelsome and contradictory bunch managed to pull it off. Similar questions were asked about Japan and Germany as late as several years after their first elections.
My own view is that I think most Iraqis know they have more to lose by falling apart and fighting each other than hanging together. That may be Pollyanahism but it's what I see of most of the Iraqi bloggers and the attitudes I see expressed by the opinion polls of Iraqi attitudes.
As I see it, really, the big question is this: will the Shia majority (it will be Shia majority no matter what) go out of their way to show the Sunnis that the new government will be fair to them? And, will the Sunnis stay afraid? If the answers to those are "yes" and "no," I expect things will work out.
But like I've said before: there will be loud arguments, there'll be screaming, there'll be angry disagreements, and there may be even the threat of civil war still to face. In the end I think it'll work out. But then that's based on my own view that ultimately most people would prefer a free and orderly society to anarchy and oppression. We'll see if I'm right.
But as for this: I hate to quote "Screw Them" Moulitsas, but Kos made a fair point: Elections are held to create a government, not to celebrate the day. Thoughts?
He's wrong. But it's not surprising he'd say that. Cranky, grunting rightists used to say that kind of thing when they were usually the election losers, now cranky, grunting leftists say the same thing. Both were wrong.
The peaceful transition of power by democratic means is always worth celebrating. In our own country that means that if your party wins an election you celebrate some and gloat a little, then get down to the business of governing. If your party loses, then you mourn a little--but if you're a real patriot, you toast the other side, you say you hope the country flourishes under their rule, and you give thanks for the fact that you live in a country where arguments are settled by public discourse and elections, not guns and knives.
I wouldn't expect a nasty brat like Moulitsas, or someone like Ann Coulter for that matter, to really appreciate those sentiments.
Thank you for all your work, Dean. I know you've debated long and hard, advocating this position. God alone knows I've had enough comment thread debates with the nay-sayers. I am so happy and so relieved that the Iraqi people were able to pull this off, and I am so disappointed that the self-annointed in the media still can't find the decency to congratulate the Iraqis and admit that maybe, just maybe, the US government may have gotten one right.
I can't see living life their way, so much pessimism, so much cynicism. Not only is the glass half-empty, in their eyes it's dirty and broken. Amazing, isn't it? The left, the press, Hollywood, threw away real enthusiasm, and optimism, and joy and gave it to the Republicans. Assuming that they were thinking, what were they thinking of?
Anyway, that's a debate for another day. The Iraqis won and the naysayers can go back to their little troll-holes under the bridges. There's too much work to do still, and they aren't worth a fart in a hurricane when it comes to the real work.
Relative to your comment above, many modern Americans with no knowledge of history BLAME the founding fathers because they did not eliminate slavery immediately on the founding of the USA. They say that the Declaration of Independence is a document rife with hypocracy because while it says all are equal, in actual practice, only white male land owners were given the full franchise.
But slavery WAS a big issue when the Founders were writing the US Constitution. An outside observer would hardly consider outspoken anti-slavery advocates to be promising candidates for a union with slave owners. It was a contentious subject that could not be resolved. At the end of the day, the Founders decided that unity was the most important issue. 74 years after the debate in 1787, that contentious issue broke out into full scale Civil War.
So the question put to you by Andrew is answered in our own history. Our forefathers were not able to resolve all of the conflicts. But they were able to set aside differences, even gravely important differences, in the pursuit of national unity. Once the Union had become strong enough, even to the point of being tested by two more major wars (Barbary Pirates, and War of 1812), and countless frontier skirmishes with hostile Indian groups who allied themselves with the Spanish, French and English provacateurs, then the nation was able to finally settle the slavery issue once and for all.
The upshot is that the Iraqi's don't have to settle every issue right away, not even the most important issues. If they are committed to freedom and unity, they can build a country that can withstand a lot of external pressures. It is possible that the Sunni/Shia/Kurdish/Arab schisms will one day break out into Civil War. But Iraqis don't have to solve all those problems on day one. They can build the strength of their union just as we built the strength of ours. And even Civil War down the road can bring a resolution, even if it ultimately results in the division of Iraq.
How long after our founding was THE United States of America referred to as THESE United States of America? How long did it take for us to truly be a united single nation rather than a collection of sovereign states in the minds of our citizens - 150 years???
Democracy is not a microwavable dish. It must be slow roasted over a low fire, and there might even be some parts that are burnt along the way. The naysayers are really saying that they either 1) don't really believe democracy is worth it, or 2) they just don't have the patience to wait for the good dish of democracy to be served. To all of them, I wish a hearty meal of microwaved BBQ ribs - cooked from the raw state in 10 minutes. I'll wait for the slow roasted variety - tender, succulent, and worth both the price and the wait.
Whoops, I forgot the Mexican-American War. So After the Revolution and prior to the Civil War, there were three major wars that helped unite the nation.
Jim, re: the Times. I've noticed they've actually had a couple of "balance" stories (for lack of a better word) wherein good works are reported, and even good reporting about the soldiers, with a couple of stories about unusual bravery.
Not many, mind you, but even that much is more than they have been putting out. Maybe now our election is over, they'll get onto reporting instead of US "regime change." Heh.
But -as you say- there's no predicting what they'll be printing next week.
Scott: we never were supposed to be "one country," as you put it. In fact -if you go by the founding father's ideas- we weren't even supposed to be a democracy, but a republic. And no, that's not a quibble.
The Democrats were originally called Republicans (Jefferson's idea, I believe), because they supposedly stood for a republic, as opposed to the neo-aristocractic regime which they claimed was come from Hamilton and company, the Federalists.
Back in the early 19th century, calling someone a "democrat" was calling them a radical or a rabble-rouser, much as some people see Howard Dean today. It was -in effect- an accusation and an insult. That party eventually embraced what was once a term of derision in much the same way Tories and Whigs in England did. The primary impetus came from the rise of political strength in the American west, and Andy Jackson brought it to the Capitol.
But your main point about slavery is entirely correct. If the abolitionists had insisted on including language on slavery in the Constitution, there wouldn't have been a United States. At least some of the southern states would never have ratified. To be fair, there were quite a few late 18th-century southerners who wished to do away with slavery. It was the cotton gin that really mucked things up. So maybe we should all piss on Eli Whitney's grave. ;) Hmm. Do they even teach that kind of stuff in schools today?
You're a hero. You stand up for democracy, freedom, justice, and you don't give a hoot what the followers of Lork Pork Pork say. I get a thousand times more knowledge and insight reading blogs like Dean's World, the Queen of All Evil, Classical Values, and Alphecca, than I do reading what once was a great newspaper. This is a great day. And it's happening in the land where it all (civilization) started.
I admire Dean
For marrying the Queen.
I admire the Queen
For marrying Dean.
The terrorists have never been more than a pinprick upon the body of Iraq - capable of killing, but not even all that effective at that; and each time they've stuck their heads up to attack, we've whacked 'em but good...and now the Iraqi military/police forces are getting good at the whacking all on their own.
This is sweet vindication - but, still, not the end; a very long, and sometimes bloody, road lies ahead of us.
I'd like, however, to pose a question to Dean: Do you think the people elected are fit to govern the country and unite it?
I hate to quote "Screw Them" Moulitsas, but Kos made a fair point: Elections are held to create a government, not to celebrate the day. Thoughts?
That we shall soon find out. I find myself optimistic for the future.
Oh, yes elections are held to create a government. What's his point? That Rome wasn't built in a day? That this isn't a movie, that once the Rebel Alliance blows up the Death Star, it won't automatically be smooth sailing after that?
Well no duh. That's what Dean and quite a few other folks (including yours truly) have been saying all along. More than a few people have quoted one of Churchill's classic sayings, that this process will take "blood, toil, tears, and sweat." That's one of our complaints with the anti-war whiners; they've been bitching that it's cost anything at all, while we've been pointing out that success will take a long time, with a lot of effort and treasure spent.
So all Kos is saying is "well, this is just one little election," with the unspoken implication that it's practically not worth noticing. This from the same people who have been predicting nothing but gloom and doom since day one.
If you haven't noticed, neither the Iraq elections nor the tsunami relief have gotten much attention from the lefty blogs. I guess it really kills them to either admit that Bush was right for once, or that his administration can do good things.
I did take a stroll over to DU, and they are still as stupid as ever; the usual litany of lies, half-truths and whines about Haliburton.
Personally, I don't think the left will ever recover from their Iraq debacle - they were so sure of themselves, now that it has all come a cropper they are just spinning around in a circle jerk...now lets see if they choose Howard Dean to play center over at the DNC...
Defying Threats, Millions of Iraqis Vote
Security Efforts Hold Insurgents Mostly at Bay
For a Battered Populace, a Day of Civic Passion
Toll Uncertain After Crash of British Plane
For Many Killed on a Dark Day in Iraq, the Future Was Bright, and Near
Arab Media Focuses on Voting, Not Violence
Except for number 4, this is all pretty positive.
No promises for tomorrow though. If it bleed it leads. You all know that.
Celebration in Iraq is warranted just as it was in those places. It is true that the success of the election does not per se imply the success of the democracy - one need only look at the bitter cynicism of today's east germans, or of many of those who fought in the anti-apartheid movement, to know that. But it is no less a milestone to be celebrated; and it would be churlish to prejudge the outcome when we don't even know the results yet. :)
17 divided by 8,000,000 = 0.00002125%
Using that same percentage multiplied by the American electorate (in the past election) of 120,000,000 voters gets 255. Would Americans consider our elections to be a fraud if a terrorist group killed 255 people on election day?
There are about 40,000 people killed on American highways every year. That is about 110 per day on average.
I wonder how many people died in traffic accidents on November 2nd - our election day. I wonder how many Americans were victims of a violent crime on November 2nd.
Pinpricks on the body politic of Iraq - that is all the terrorists can do; they can manage murder, but they cannot actually change events. They'd be completely dried up and blown away except for MSM and elitist carping about how we're going about killing them.
We don't even know yet who that is.
If you look at the history of the founding of our own country, or many others, you might find yourself asking how such a quarrelsome and contradictory bunch managed to pull it off. Similar questions were asked about Japan and Germany as late as several years after their first elections.
My own view is that I think most Iraqis know they have more to lose by falling apart and fighting each other than hanging together. That may be Pollyanahism but it's what I see of most of the Iraqi bloggers and the attitudes I see expressed by the opinion polls of Iraqi attitudes.
As I see it, really, the big question is this: will the Shia majority (it will be Shia majority no matter what) go out of their way to show the Sunnis that the new government will be fair to them? And, will the Sunnis stay afraid? If the answers to those are "yes" and "no," I expect things will work out.
But like I've said before: there will be loud arguments, there'll be screaming, there'll be angry disagreements, and there may be even the threat of civil war still to face. In the end I think it'll work out. But then that's based on my own view that ultimately most people would prefer a free and orderly society to anarchy and oppression. We'll see if I'm right.
But as for this: I hate to quote "Screw Them" Moulitsas, but Kos made a fair point: Elections are held to create a government, not to celebrate the day. Thoughts?
He's wrong. But it's not surprising he'd say that. Cranky, grunting rightists used to say that kind of thing when they were usually the election losers, now cranky, grunting leftists say the same thing. Both were wrong.
The peaceful transition of power by democratic means is always worth celebrating. In our own country that means that if your party wins an election you celebrate some and gloat a little, then get down to the business of governing. If your party loses, then you mourn a little--but if you're a real patriot, you toast the other side, you say you hope the country flourishes under their rule, and you give thanks for the fact that you live in a country where arguments are settled by public discourse and elections, not guns and knives.
I wouldn't expect a nasty brat like Moulitsas, or someone like Ann Coulter for that matter, to really appreciate those sentiments.
I can't see living life their way, so much pessimism, so much cynicism. Not only is the glass half-empty, in their eyes it's dirty and broken. Amazing, isn't it? The left, the press, Hollywood, threw away real enthusiasm, and optimism, and joy and gave it to the Republicans. Assuming that they were thinking, what were they thinking of?
Anyway, that's a debate for another day. The Iraqis won and the naysayers can go back to their little troll-holes under the bridges. There's too much work to do still, and they aren't worth a fart in a hurricane when it comes to the real work.
Thanks again.
Relative to your comment above, many modern Americans with no knowledge of history BLAME the founding fathers because they did not eliminate slavery immediately on the founding of the USA. They say that the Declaration of Independence is a document rife with hypocracy because while it says all are equal, in actual practice, only white male land owners were given the full franchise.
But slavery WAS a big issue when the Founders were writing the US Constitution. An outside observer would hardly consider outspoken anti-slavery advocates to be promising candidates for a union with slave owners. It was a contentious subject that could not be resolved. At the end of the day, the Founders decided that unity was the most important issue. 74 years after the debate in 1787, that contentious issue broke out into full scale Civil War.
So the question put to you by Andrew is answered in our own history. Our forefathers were not able to resolve all of the conflicts. But they were able to set aside differences, even gravely important differences, in the pursuit of national unity. Once the Union had become strong enough, even to the point of being tested by two more major wars (Barbary Pirates, and War of 1812), and countless frontier skirmishes with hostile Indian groups who allied themselves with the Spanish, French and English provacateurs, then the nation was able to finally settle the slavery issue once and for all.
The upshot is that the Iraqi's don't have to settle every issue right away, not even the most important issues. If they are committed to freedom and unity, they can build a country that can withstand a lot of external pressures. It is possible that the Sunni/Shia/Kurdish/Arab schisms will one day break out into Civil War. But Iraqis don't have to solve all those problems on day one. They can build the strength of their union just as we built the strength of ours. And even Civil War down the road can bring a resolution, even if it ultimately results in the division of Iraq.
How long after our founding was THE United States of America referred to as THESE United States of America? How long did it take for us to truly be a united single nation rather than a collection of sovereign states in the minds of our citizens - 150 years???
Democracy is not a microwavable dish. It must be slow roasted over a low fire, and there might even be some parts that are burnt along the way. The naysayers are really saying that they either 1) don't really believe democracy is worth it, or 2) they just don't have the patience to wait for the good dish of democracy to be served. To all of them, I wish a hearty meal of microwaved BBQ ribs - cooked from the raw state in 10 minutes. I'll wait for the slow roasted variety - tender, succulent, and worth both the price and the wait.
Not many, mind you, but even that much is more than they have been putting out. Maybe now our election is over, they'll get onto reporting instead of US "regime change." Heh.
But -as you say- there's no predicting what they'll be printing next week.
Scott: we never were supposed to be "one country," as you put it. In fact -if you go by the founding father's ideas- we weren't even supposed to be a democracy, but a republic. And no, that's not a quibble.
The Democrats were originally called Republicans (Jefferson's idea, I believe), because they supposedly stood for a republic, as opposed to the neo-aristocractic regime which they claimed was come from Hamilton and company, the Federalists.
Back in the early 19th century, calling someone a "democrat" was calling them a radical or a rabble-rouser, much as some people see Howard Dean today. It was -in effect- an accusation and an insult. That party eventually embraced what was once a term of derision in much the same way Tories and Whigs in England did. The primary impetus came from the rise of political strength in the American west, and Andy Jackson brought it to the Capitol.
But your main point about slavery is entirely correct. If the abolitionists had insisted on including language on slavery in the Constitution, there wouldn't have been a United States. At least some of the southern states would never have ratified. To be fair, there were quite a few late 18th-century southerners who wished to do away with slavery. It was the cotton gin that really mucked things up. So maybe we should all piss on Eli Whitney's grave. ;) Hmm. Do they even teach that kind of stuff in schools today?