Let Freedom Reign
Dave Price
Just imagine, that little boy may grow up never knowing a time when Iraq was not a free democracy.
Another victory for free people everywhere, as Iraqis once again defied threats of violence and expressed their will at the ballot box in a day that, thanks to the competence of U.S. and Iraqi forces, turned out to be one of the most peaceful in months. Bill Roggio has an excellent roundup of just how ineffectual Al Qaeda’s anti-democratic efforts actually were on this historic day.
Turnout appears to be high in Shiite and Kurdish areas, and in Sunni areas low but still much higher than in the Jan 30 elections. By any reasonable measure, this constitutional referendum appears to have been a successful exercise in consensual government.
And now the question becomes: whither post-referendum Iraq? Will the moderate Sunnis continue to gravitate toward the electoral process? Will there be a ripple effect throughout the Mideast like we saw after the January elections? And how long will the violence continue?
Expectations are somewhat diminished as compared to the first vote, which many hoped would be a panacea for the violence. But the combined effects of the process of compromise and the continued pressure by U.S./Iraqi forces on the militants appears to be gradually persuading more and more Sunnis to choose the ballot over the bullet. With parliamentary elections that promise to bring many more Sunnis into the democratic process only two months away, there is certainly reason for hope.
Update: Dancing in the streets.
Update: Norm Geras has some interesting and worthwhile thoughts on the reaction to the referendum.
This isn't about Bush. This isn't about American Imperialism. This is about Freedom. Freedom!
That means the freedom to think what you want to think, so what you want to say without fear that the State or jokers with guns are going to shoot you in the balls for thinking or saying something.
You'd think that the people who worry about gays getting hitched or women having every opportunity to have an abortion they can would be dancing in the streets to see people enjoying basic freedoms - freedoms that they've never had.
But no. They don't. They're f*&*ing depressed.
I'm surprised but sadly not stunned anymore. David Horowitz wrote a book about the Left and their moth/flame fascination with fundamentalist Islam.
The Left needs to take a good hard look at what they've become. It reminds me of the Conservatives and the 1950s, when the C word meant nutjob isoloationists who were bummed the Nazis lost WW2. WF Buckley jr and the National Review cleaned up that mess.
The Left needs a WF Buckley, jr to clean their house. Badly - because the joint really stinks.
From everything that I have seen in various news reports, the voting today in Iraq is a huge success. And I am measuring "success" by MY standards, which are tougher than those of most people who comment on Dean's world in regard to Iraq.
First, most people across all three nations that comprise the Iraqi population seem to be voting, and this time, unlike the earlier election, there is much greater participation on the part of the sun'a Arabs.
Second, there has been remarkable little violence. Zarqawi's terrorists and the rest of the al-Qaida elements in Iraq seem to have had their wings clipped to some degree. The security arrangements around the country have proven successful beyond what most of us would have expected, and more or less air-tight as well.
Third, most of the effort on behalf of organizing this country-wide referendum has been initiated successfully by the Iraqi police and security agencies, with widespread cooperation among nationa, municipal and tribal leadership people. The US role seems strictly to provide backup.
So I congratulate the US, allied, and -- above all, Iraqi -- personnel and agencies who made possible the success of this tentative experiment in what could eventually prove to be viable constitutional government in the country for the first time in its history.
None of these comments are intended to imply that I consider what is being worked on in Iraq as anything approaching the standards that we rightfully require for countries such as the United States. Nobody should forget that Iraq not only is an islamic society burdened moreover with some of the societally unhappy aspects of Arab culture. And equally, nobody should forget that Iraq is, and shall remain, a country attempting to make three separate nations within it co-exist.
All things considered, Iraq is still going to be a country directed under the stultifying tenets of shari's (islamic religious and civil law), with fixed relationships between people and their state defined not by individual and inalienable liberties, but by their standing within a particular religiously or nationally defined group.
Moreover, in the long run, there is still a strong likelihood of the Kurdish national group splitting off to form the core of a larger independent Kurdish state.
However, I was impressed by an argument raised recently by Dean, when he implied that if a government can be put in place in Baghdad that could be considered both stable, constitutionally consensual among the three Iraqi nations, and conducive to improving the economy of the country as a whole, then the Kurds might well have a good reason to want to stay about what could then be considered the good ship Iraq.
Even if all these factors lead to a greater level of success for the mission of the US and its allies in Iraq, none of this means we can pull all our troops out in the next couple of years. But if stability in that country grows as a result of the new political trends evident from participation in the present referendum, than the foreign military presence in Iraq -- including the expensive presence we now maintain there -- can be reduced during that time frame.
Well done.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
The full test for that will be what parties come to power in the upcoming national elections in December.
Like Arnold, what impresses me most--besides the high turnout and full participation this time around of the Sunnis--is that an even greater amount of the security was handled by the Iraqis themselves. That was true in the January elections as well, with US forces trying to be inconspicuous and act as backup, but the US role was even further reduced this time around.
But as Scott says, those who are already trying to make a sow's ear out of this silk purse are certainly annoying.
I think it's worth noting too that sharia under democracy is not the same as sharia under theocracy.
If you read the books of the Bible which lay down the laws--especially exodus and leviticus--you will find the legal code described there to be extremely draconian and savage if read literally, with executions prescribed for things like wearing the wrong clothes, adultery, or working on the sabbath. The Talmud, however, which is thousands of years of rabbinical commentary on those laws, have determined that those are very rarely or never to be taken literally. I understand that some of the Torah tradition is embedded in the Israeli court system, yet I can't seem to recall the last time they ordered the stoning of an astrologer.
The point of this is, therefore, that we need to wait and see what they mean by having sharia as "a source" of law. Much of that will be determined by what comes in the next round of elections, for those elected leaders will undoubtedly set the tone for generations to come on that issue.
"We'll see about the sharia business; the public opinion surveys of Iraqis shows that a majority favor mostly-secular government with respect for islamic standards, which I read to mean that, like Americans, they're happy with giving God lip service in official state functions, on the money, and so on, but not necessarily wanting clerical rule."
That doesn't bother me. I have no problem whatsoever with public acknowledgement of a Supreme Being. In a country where the overwhelming majority of the people are Muslims of one kind or other, that's necessarily going to take an Islamic form. If they want to have voluntary prayer in the form of bowing to Mecca in their schools five times a day, that's fine with me. Let them worship as they please. It's when they start enacting "sodomy" laws, forcing women to wear burqas, persecuting other religions -- that's where I draw the line.
And if they choose to come to our shores, then they have no right to stop the Christian and Jewish majority from displaying the Ten Commandments, menorahs, crosses, Christmas trees, Nativity scenes, etc., in the public square.
Like Arnold, I am not nearly as jubilant about the results of todays vote as Dean and others are. Those like Oliver Willis who say that regardless of the outcome of the vote, that Iraq will still be "a stinking mess" are partly correct, but only because democracy is ALWAYS a stinking mess.
Democracy is not neat. Democracy doesn't put everyone in their place. In practice, allowing individual freedom will always be a little chaotic, a little troublesome, a little dangerous, and a lot unpredictable. Democracy is a horrible idiotic system of governance unless you compare it to any other form of governance we have ever derived.
The problem with all of those neat, orderly systems of government is that in order to provide a defined role for everyone and everything, they must severely restrict the freedom and movement and knowledge of everyone. Unfortunately, human beings are not very amenable to programming by some unseen central planner. So in order to preserve order, FEAR must be introduced in some form or fashion. That what neat, orderly governments get you - a society driven by fear. Next to that, a little chaos, a little trouble, a little danger, and a lot of unpredictability don't seem quite so bad.
I am happy for the Iraqi people today. But I do not believe that the Iraqi's will soon enjoy the type of freedom we take for granted here in America. I don't believe that Iraqi's two generations hence will look back with fondness on America, the midwife of her freedom. But I am okay with that.
Today, I am ecstatic for Americans and for America. Though the critics of Iraqi democracy, including myself, may be correct when finding fault with Iraq; though Iraqi democracy might fail by comparison with our own practice of democracy; and though many may have justification for gloating when Iraqi democracy falls short of our expectations; all of that entirely misses the point.
The primary purpose and goal of this venture was and is to improve the security of United States of America from attack. No matter the eventual form and practice of Iraqi democracy, the overriding truth is that ANY type of Iraqi democracy provides America with greater security.
If, as President Bush stated in his weekly address today, "al Qaeda intends to make Iraq a terrorist haven and a staging ground for attacks against other nations, including the United States," then fighting them in Iraq is better than fighting them on our own shores and in our own cities. If
Then in helping the Iraqi's create a fighting force whereby they become the frontline fighters against Al Queda, we have accomplished a magnificent feat.
I applaud the Iraqi's. I wish them well. But I also applaud a President with the vision and foresight to take the fight away from our shores and into the backyard of the enemy. I applaud a President with the foresight, wisdom, and willingness to see the faultlines in their own culture and political reality, and seize the opportunity to divide the enemy and set them upon each other.
Remember, these same Iraqi's danced in the streets on 9/11. They rejoiced in our calamity. Now through the strength of might and persuasion, the President, with the help of our Armed Forces, has succeeded in turning these people into fighters against the very terrorism that threatens America.
Iraq may never become the ally that we might hope them to be. But I can accept that. Those who might wish for outpourings of gratitude from the Iraqi's might have a long wait ahead of them. But if Iraqi's willingly fight against the nihilistic totalitarianism of Islamism, I can forego their gratitude.
Remember to keep the primary goal front and center. We naturally rejoice when other peoples embrace freedom. But the reason we are spending OUR blood and OUR fortune to secure Iraqi freedom is to enhance OUR freedom and OUR security. And that is why today is a red letter day in the history of America.
Congratulations to President Bush and the Armed Forces. Bravo!
Well anyway... some Iraqis are already terribly grateful. Some were from the beginning, some became disillusioned, some went the other way and became hopeful. Will they ever all be on the same page there? Nope. Never.
The move toward freedom takes time, and part of freedom includes allowing people to disagree with you and criticize you.
What happens next is the big question: when the results of the referendum are announced, will the level of violence ratchet up in rage? Or cool down? Let's hope for the latter.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI