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VICTORY!
IF TODAY'S EVENTS had happened in 1945, this would be the headline flashed 'round the world:
THE BATTLE FOR IRAQ IS WON!
Sporadic Resistance Persists in Western Provinces
VICTORY.jpg
REUTERS/Ceerwan Aziz
But it's 2005, and such 'jingoistic' headlines are now frowned upon in journalistic circles. So instead, we get these:
New York Times:
Millions of Iraqis Cast Votes for Parliament
Heavy Sunni Turnout Is Seen; Attacks Are Scattered and Light
Washington Post:
Voters Turn Out in Force For Iraqi Election
Reports of Violence Isolated as Insurgents Suspend Attacks, Encourage Voting
Wall Street Journal:
Polls Close in Iraq
Sunni Voter Turnout Is High In Parliamentary Election
USA Today:
Iraq election sees high voter turnout
Heavy Sunni Turnout Is Seen; Attacks Are Scattered and Light
LA Times:
Polls Close After Iraqi Voters Turn Out in Droves
CNN:
'It's been a good day for Iraq'
Strong turnout reported, even among Sunnis, in historic elections
MSNBC:
High Sunni turnout as Iraq votes in key election
Officials extend voting, call process successful; scattered violence reported
FOX News:
Vote Counting Begins in Historic Iraq Elections
ABC News:
Turnout Strong for Iraq Parliamentary Vote
Iraqis Cast Ballots in One of the Arab World's Largest, Freest Elections; Sunni Turnout Strong
Thus, most of America misses the real story:
Al Qaeda is Defeated in Iraq
THE IRAQI SUNNIS have rejected Zarqawi's call to jihad. They've had enough of his foreign fighers. They now realize that their only hope for a prosperous future is to participate fully in the democratic process -- and that is precisely what happened today.
Zarqawi predicted this very outcome in a letter to Bin Laden, intercepted by Coalition Forces last January:
In what they call the Sunni triangle, the army and police are spreading out in these regions, putting in charge Sunnis from the same region. Therefore, the problem is you end up having an army and police connected by lineage, blood, and appearance to the people of the region. This region is our base of operations from where we depart and to where we return. When the Americans withdraw, and they have already started doing that, they get replaced by these agents who are intimately linked to the people of this region. What will happen to us, if we fight them, and we have to fight them, is one of only two choices:
1) If we fight them, that will be difficult because there will be a schism between us and the people of the region. How can we kill their cousins and sons and under what pretext, after the Americans start withdrawing? The Americans will continue to control from their bases, but the sons of this land will be the authority. This is the democracy, we will have no pretext.
2) We can pack up and leave and look for another land, just like it has happened in so many lands of jihad. Our enemy is growing stronger day after day, and its intelligence information increases. By god, this is suffocation! We will be on the roads again. People follow their leaders, their hearts may be with you, but their swords are with their kings.
What Zarqawi feared has now come to pass. Today, in western Iraq, armed Iraqis stood watch over polling places -- not to deter their fellow Sunnis from voting, but to protect them from jihadists who threatened to kill anyone who voted.
The war continues, but the outcome in Iraq is no longer in doubt. The Sunnis have thrown in their lot with democracy. Zarqawi is all that remains of the resistance. It is only a matter of time before he and his followers are forced to flee from the Land Between the Rivers.
Posted by Smash on December 15, 2005
Editorial: Voice of the People
16 December 2005
It was the voice of the Iraqi people that was being heard yesterday, not the bomb blasts of the terrorists. What little violence there was as millions crowded toward their local polling stations only served to demonstrate how incoherent and pointless are the efforts of the men of violence to change the country through further bloodshed.
President Jalal Talabani had asked Iraqis to treat election day as a day of celebration and celebrate is what most people did. Whatever his or her political views, virtually every voter who was asked agreed that this was a momentous day, which well deserved the often party-like atmosphere that gripped the heavily patrolled, traffic-free streets. Time and again Iraqis told inquiring journalists that this was the moment when they took control of their country, the beginning of the end of the US-led occupation and though this was generally voiced more cautiously the beginning of the end of insurgent violence.
It will be some time before it is known which of the 6,655 candidates from an astonishing 307 different political parties has won one of the 275 seats in the first freely elected Parliament in Iraqs history. What is clear, however, is that all Iraqis won a victory yesterday a victory of peace over violence, of negotiation over nihilism, of brotherhood over bigotry.
No one should pretend, of course, that the violence will now end rapidly. But the display of determination by all Iraqis to participate in the democratic process must have made a deep impression on all but the most hardened terrorists. The fact that so many Sunnis trooped to the polling stations for the first time, having boycotted the previous two national votes, sends the clear message that the community which most of the insurgents pretend to represent wants peace, not violence. Nor are they prepared to be intimidated by the killers in their midst. They want to become part of the political process.
Whatever the final composition of Parliament, this was a vote for peace. The next stage is for the newly elected politicians to form a government and an opposition, which will fairly reflect the views of all communities. As we saw over the constitution, there will be protracted horse-trading and indeed further adjustments to be negotiated to that very document. Such negotiations must be conducted in a spirit of fairness and compromise. Wherever possible, Iraqs new legislators must seek consensus and avoid entrenched positions.
Beginning today, this is democracys chance in Iraq. Massive hopes are riding on the success of the political process. Nevertheless, providing men of moderation can hold the center ground and bring more extreme politicians at least to its edge, the new Parliament can work. A muscular broad-based administration will only emerge if politicians are prepared to work together for the greater good. Now is not the time for individual political aspirations to come to the fore. Future Iraqis will honor all those who today focus on stability rather than their own ambitions.
Hagbard Celine said:Oh, so you've apparently found a secret news source that none of the major news providers are onto? You're a genius! Your "pundit" site is obviously an objective, professional news source that should be trusted! Read-on sister!
You haven't heard of Arab News? So you call it 'secret'.
Hagbard Celine said:Oh, so you've apparently found a secret news source that none of the major news providers are onto? You're a genius! Your "pundit" site is obviously an objective, professional news source that should be trusted! Read-on sister!
