Dean's World

Iraq won. America won. The human race won.

Immediately after polls closed, the New York Times grudgingly released their big story: "Amid Attacks, A Party Atmosphere on Baghdad's Closed Streets." You almost had to admire the Times' pluck: they so wanted tragedy, but they were grudgingly admitting the truth.

But then, barely four hours after polls closed, they changed the headline on the exact same story to this: Insurgent Attacks in Baghdad and Elsewhere Kill at Least 24

You have to laugh, don't you?

Millions upon millions voted despite being told that they and their families would be murdered--then walked the streets proudly waving their inked fingers, undeniable proof of their exercise of the franchise, showing everyone what they'd just done for themselves, their families, and their country.

Thousands of polling places were open and, despite our worst fears, only a handful saw any violence at all. At the few places that did see violence, people still showed up in droves to vote anyway.

Terrorists--and please, can we now dispense with the Orwellian term "insurgent?"--were openly defied and in some cases beaten senseless by enraged voters armed with nothing but their shoes.

Countless millions walked miles to vote. In one case, a polling place had to be opened over 10 miles away from its original location at the last moment--and people by the thousands streamed on foot, some of them on crutches, just to get there.

There's an old joke about walking a mile to smoke a camel. Well, these people walked ten miles on crutches just to smoke a terrorist.

How can your heart not burst with admiration?

Millions upon millions--including women and members of every minority group--voted for the first time in their lives. Even in neighboring Iran and Syria, expatriate Iraqis were able to vote while native Iranians and Syrians, still denied the right to vote in their own nations, looked on in wonder as freedom was exercised by their Iraqi friends.

And this is what the New York Times thought the most important, take-home message was: "Insurgent Attacks in Baghdad and Elsewhere Kill at Least 24."

They couldn't even call them terrorists.

I'm sure it'll get worse in the coming days. After all, these are the people who for two years now have consistently painted the greatest American military success story since 1945, and the lowest casualty rate in world history, as a "quagmire" that's "spinning out of control." These are the people who've given free voice to the modern reactionaries who speak of "imperialism" and "hubris," who demand that our poltical leaders "admit" failure, and compare terrorists who bomb hospitals and cut civilians' heads off to America's minutemen.

For two years, despite all of this anti-American propagandizing from our own press corps, our brave men and women in the armed forces have been protecting human rights, opening schools and hospitals and power plants and water and sewage treatment centers, stringing telephone and internet wires and helping to open free radio and television stations and newspapers. All while the naysayers just sneered. Then the naysayers and the petty, carping critics could do nothing but bite at GI Joe's ankles while he was setting up safety zones so that the Iraqis could hold free elections.

Then, while native Iraqi police and army did most of the security work, millions upon millions defied the terrorist threats and voted--while GI Joe stood quietly aside, blocks away from the polling stations and careful to stay out of the way. Our boys and girls were there, ready to help but only if called upon by the Iraqis themselves. And for the most part, they weren't needed. So they stayed out of sight all over the country, while the Iraqis had their much-deserved day of freedom without our intrusion.

Yes yes. "Insurgents In Baghdad And Elsewhere Kill 24." That's the take-home message. You have to laugh, don't you?

Well, soon it'll be back to talk of our imperialism and our hubris and our inability to "admit failure." We'll see prominent interviews with sullen Iraqis who didn't vote, or who complain that things still aren't perfect. Rarely will anyone note the irony that the freedom to complain is something these people never used to have, and that the freedom to vote includes the freedom not to vote if you don't want to.

Almost two years ago, on February 15, 2003, long before our military action to liberate Iraq from fascist tyrannty began, I started the following internet button campaign:

I remember the names I got called for that. The sneers at my character and at anyone who would display such a button. I remember being called an imperialist, a "Bush apologist," a right-wing propagandist, a liar, and worse by the kind of people who read things like Daily Kos and Metafilter and Democratic Underground and Truthout and Indymedia and The Nation. By the kind of people who make excuses for lying hate-propagandists like Michael Moore. But those voices, they just get smaller, and tinnier, and funnier, and sadder, all the time.

Today, with the exception of the days my sons were born, I have never felt prouder. All of us bloggers who supported Iraq's liberation from fascism, all of us who worked against the relentlessly defeatist American press corps, have something to be proud of. We were nowhere near as important as those who served in the military, nowhere near as important as the countless Iraqis who took control of their own fate despite the those who said the Iraqis "didn't want" or were "incapable of" democracy. Our role was small.

But we mattered. We let people know that most of the press wasn't telling the full story. We let people know that the press wanted us to fail, wanted us to lose. We let people know there was reason for hope and optimism. We let people know this was a fight worth fighting, a cause worthy of American blood and treasure.

By the way, remember this?

I never forgot.

We were right.