Month: January 2005

Part of the amusement of watching the coverage of the historic Iraqi elections comes from seeing certain Democrats making asses of themselves on national TV. I’m watching MS-NBC, where former Undersecretary of Defense Jed Babbin just dismantled Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) on a military pull-out from Iraq. Babbin couldn’t contain himself when Woolsey tried using a page from the Left’s new post-election playbook:

WOOLSEY: … We also would like to see, ah, the United States military take a step back and the multinational, ah, humanitarian groups step forward so we can help the Iraqis now with their, ah, rebuilding their infrastructure, rebuilding their economy, and helping take the military presence, ah, to help them instead to train their, ah, their security.
HOST: Congresswoman, are you calling for an immediate phased withdrawal along the lines of what Senator Kennedy suggested last week?
W: Well, I’m calling for immediate planning for withdrawal, ah, by pulling, ah, the Iraqis, ah, their neighbors, ah, the Arab nations together with the United Nations and the United States and talk about how we’re going to do this, and, ah, ah, how — how best to do it immediately.
H: If I could just follow up, Jed, on that line about political pressure, there really hasn’t been — apart from some members of Congress, Senator Kennedy to be sure — there really hasn’t been a lot of political or popular pressure to start a withdrawal. So that really gives the president some breathing room with his policy, don’t you think?
BABBIN: Oh, it sure does. The President has it right, and with all due respect, Congresswoman, you have it so vastly, vastly wrong, it’s hard to even begin to describe. People have been asking, the President has been asking the international community to come in and help in Iraq for almost two years now. The fact is that no matter how much wishful thinking we have, they’re not going to come! We can go to the UN until the cows come home, and these people are not going to send in humanitarian relief, they’re not going to send in engineers, they’re not going to pay for things. These people have abandoned democracy, and to say that we’re going to have some sort of miraculous recovery at the United Nations or that the eunuchs of Old Europe will come riding to our rescue is simply disingenuous.
W: Well, I disagree with you. Actually, I believe that if we, ah, remove our military presence, and are there as members of a multinational, um, peacekeeping organization, then the other countries will come forward. Actually, I heard an interview with a leader in France saying that’s exactly what they would be pleased to do.
B: If I could jump back in there for a minute, you’re saying that Iraq’s neighbors are going to come in and help? Syria and Iran, which are backing the insurgency? I mean, you can’t seriously suggest that the neighboring nations are going to come to the aid of Iraq when they’re doing everything they can in desperation to try to prevent democracy!
W: Part of that, I believe, has a lot to do with our military presence, the United States looking like occupiers. Now that this election is behind us, we should help the Iraqi people put their government together for the Iraqi people. But that means we don’t put together the infrastructure through US corporations so that Halliburton makes all the profit and the benefit instead of the Iraqi people.

Lynn Woolsey represents the Sixth Congressional District in California, encompassing the Santa Rosa area. She continued to embarrass herself and her district in the Crossfire-type program, obviously outmatched in this battle of wits. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Ron Reagan giving her a half-hearted boost at the end, I think she would have completely melted down. I don’t know why my native state continues to send the products of its educational system to Congress, but the entertainment value is tremendous.
UPDATE: I hope that MS-NBC puts a transcript of this show on its website. Jeralyn Merritt says twice that the casting of ballots doesn’t make for legitimate government. Classic comedy from the Left! I can’t wait for 2006.

Day By Day:

If you’re not reading Chris every day, you’re missing out the most intelligent political satire.

I wrote earlier about watching how the Iraqis openly defied the terrorists by walking so casually and forcefully to the polls inspired me. Rich at the excellent milblog Beef Always Wins had a chance to take some pictures while circling Baghdad in his helicopter, and he tells me that those prove the point. Here’s one that I’ve hosted, but I encourage you to check out the rest at Rich’s:

Take a look at Kevin McCullough’s montages of Iraqi and expatriate voting, too. Very moving.
UPDATE: You should definitely read this Radioblogger entry about Iraqis voting in Lake Forest, CA, at the old El Toro MCAS. Hugh Hewitt broadcast live there on Friday and Duane has some terrific pictures posted, along with some great stories.

The New York Times gives an unequivocal look at the astounding victory for democracy won by the defiant Iraqi people and steadfast Coalition partners. Dexter Filkens filed a surprisingly blunt assessment of the complete defeat of terrorism and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in attempting to drag the Iraqis into a second darkness:

After a slow start, voters turned out in very large numbers in Baghdad today, packing polling places and creating a party atmosphere in the streets as Iraqis here and nationwide turned out to cast ballots in the country’s first free elections in more than 50 years. …
The voting in Baghdad streets of Baghdad were closed to traffic, but full of children playing soccer, and men and women walking, some carrying babies. Everyone, it seemed, was going to vote. They dropped their ballots into boxes even as continuous mortar shells started exploding at about noon.
Thirty-six civilians and three police officers died in mortar attacks and suicide bombings around the country, the Interior Minister reported. Twenty-two of the deaths occurred in Baghdad, Reuters reported, where mortar attacks took three lives and 19 people were killed by suicide bombers. At least 29 were wounded in the attacks in the capital, Reuters said.
But it the insurgents wanted to stop people in Baghdad from voting, they failed. If they wanted to cause chaos, they failed. The voters were completely defiant, and there was a feeling that the people of Baghdad, showing a new, positive attitude, had turned a corner.
No one was claiming that the insurgency was over or that the deadly attacks would end. But the atmosphere in this usually grim capital, a city at war and an ethnic microcosm of the country, had changed, with people dressed in their finest clothes to go to the polls in what was generally a convivial mood.

After months of editorializing about the folly of imposing democracy at gunpoint and calling for delaying elections in favor of reaching out towards the so-called insurgents, the New York Times finally gets it right today. I’m glad to see it, but let’s also remember that had we listened to the Gray Lady initially, these people would still be suffering under the oppression of Saddam Hussein, or if we had listened later, we would have abandoned them to the bloodthirsty lunatics.
One wonders if Pinch Sulzberger and his associate ever tire of being wrong. Today’s report by Filkins might well provide evidence that they occasionally do.

Fox News reports on the Iraqi voter turnout by region, using figures from the Iraqi election commission. I’ve frozen the graphic on my TiVo to make sure I get this right:
Nationwide: 72%
Baghdad: 80%
South: 92%
Najaf: 80%
Karbala: 90%
Hell, you can’t find numbers like that in America — except in certain precincts in King County, WA and Milwaukee.

Reuters appears to have outperformed the BBC in reporting the historical turnout in Iraq’s first multiparty elections in over fifty years. Luke Baker writes about the “festive voting” and the enthusiasm of Iraqis for democracy:

Some came on crutches, others walked for miles then struggled to read the ballot, but across Iraq, millions turned out to vote Sunday, defying insurgents who threatened a bloodbath.
Suicide bombs and mortars killed at least 27 people, but voters still came out in force for the first multi-party poll in 50 years. In some places they cheered with joy at their first chance to cast a free vote, in others they shared chocolates.
Even in Falluja, the Sunni city west of Baghdad that was a militant stronghold until a U.S. assault in November, a steady stream of people turned out, confounding expectations. Lines of veiled women clutching their papers waited to vote.
“We want to be like other Iraqis, we don’t want to always be in opposition,” said Ahmed Jassim, smiling after he voted.
In Baquba, a rebellious city northeast of Baghdad, spirited crowds clapped and cheered at one voting station. In Mosul, scene of some of the worst insurgent attacks in recent months, U.S. and local officials said turnout was surprisingly high.

Earlier, the BBC crowed over the low turnout in Fallujah, giving that fact the lead in its initial reports on the election. That turned out to have all the accuracy of an 11 AM VNS exit poll; the Fallujans just needed a bit more time to feel safe enough to cast their ballots.
In Baghdad, where Western news agencies widely predicted a low turnout, the city celebrated its freedom from oppression:

A small group cheered in Baghdad as Sharif Ali bin al-Hussein, a descendant of Iraq’s last king, went to the polls. Ali leads a constitutional monarchy slate in the election.
Western Baghdad polling stations were busy, with long queues of voters. Most went about the process routinely, filling in their ballots and leaving quickly without much emotion.
Others brought chocolates for those waiting in line, and shared festive juice drinks inside the voting station.
Samir Hassan, 32, who lost his leg in a car bomb blast in October, was determined to vote. “I would have crawled here if I had to. I don’t want terrorists to kill other Iraqis like they tried to kill me. Today I am voting for peace,” he said, leaning on his metal crutches, determination in his reddened eyes. …
Baghdad’s mayor was overcome with emotion by the turnout of voters at City Hall, where he said thousands were celebrating.
“I cannot describe what I am seeing. It is incredible. This is a vote for the future, for the children, for the rule of law, for humanity, for love,” Alaa al-Tamimi told Reuters.

What’s most striking to me is the video of the people coming to the polling stations, something I noticed last night but didn’t write down. If you watch them walking to the polling stations, they aren’t running or walking under cover, even though some appeared available. They’re walking at a normal pace, out in the middle of the street, accompanied by their children. I’m sure they had some trepidation about voting, but they refused to be terrorized by the bloodthirsty lunatics that mesmerize the Western media. They walked tall, smiling for the cameras and waving Iraqi flags, as they defied the nihilists.
No one can now doubt that the Iraqis wanted to be freed of Saddam’s grip, and that regardless of the various arguments about the origins of the war, our effort to spread democracy has succeeded. The massive turnout shows that Arabs want freedom and self-determination, not a Saddam-like strongman ruling through oppression.
I’d ask the Estriches and Kennedys today if after seeing this, they still think our liberation of Iraq was a mistake. Do we prefer this, or do we prefer the continuance of the rape rooms, the cut-out tongues, and the genocides of Saddam Hussein?

“Election is what I am need!”
An election is what Iraq needed, as the country’s election commission estimates that 72% of eligible voters stormed the polls in today’s elections, with the figure approaching 90% in areas such as Basra. Here’s what the BBC says, and check out how they buried the lead:

Suicide attacks and explosions have killed 22 people – mainly in Baghdad – as voters take part in Iraq’s first multi-party elections for 50 years.
Correspondents said there were crowds and smiles in the south and north as voters made their choices for a 275-member national assembly.
But few voters turned out in Sunni areas around the capital, reports said.
Iraq’s electoral commission says up to 72% of voters cast ballots but the UN offered a more cautious assessment.

Before discussing the remarkable turnout in the face of widely-reported terrorist warnings of bloodbaths, the BBC discusses each and every attack on polling place. Understandably, the BBC needs to inform its readership of the attacks, but focusing on that instead of the victory of the Iraqi people shows a twisted sense of priorities. It’s as if the Beeb reported D-Day by talking about how the Americans got chewed up on Omaha Beach while waiting until halwfway through the article to note that they achieved their objectives.
John Simpson returns to the turnout later, again invoking the UN:

Despite the attacks in Baghdad, voting at polling stations in the country’s mostly Shia Muslim south and Kurdish north was said to be brisk.
Iraq’s electoral commission held a news conference 90 minutes before polls closed to say turnout was estimated at 72%, with 90% or more in some Shia areas.
But electoral official Adil al-Lami did not say how these figures had been reached.
Earlier, the top UN electoral adviser Carlos Valenzuela offered a much more cautious assessment, saying turnout appeared to be high in many areas, but that it was too early to know for sure.

Well, perhaps they’re performing an ancient ritual known as counting. Besides, the UN has less than 100 people in Iraq to facilitate these elections, so it’s small wonder that they have no clue on election data. That never gets a mention by Simpson in this report. This is not Simpson’s first questionable reporting from a war zone; in 1999, the London Times complained of Simpson’s anti-Western bias in his Serbian reports.
I wonder if it even crosses Simpson’s mind that the terrorists can count on his myopia like clockwork, or if it bothers him if it does.

Thousands of people are now walking a 13-mile stretch between Abu Ghraib and Gazaliyah to cast votes in the elections, military sources tell Fox News. The mass march has been caught by unmanned drones, and Fox says they will soon have pictures of the subtle demonstration of the Iraqi desire for liberty.
More as it develops. Fox also reports long lines in most polling stations, with some even calling for more ballot materials as they run out of ballots faster than they anticipated.

The BBC now reports that turnout for the Iraqi elections has been surprisingly high, except in the Sunni cities that once hosted Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s terrorist network:

Voting officially started at 0700 local time (0400 GMT), though some polling stations opened even earlier.
The BBC’s Ben Brown in Basra says electoral officials have been surprised by the high turnout there, and some polling stations had to open early.
But correspondents in central Sunni cities, such as Falluja, Samarra and Ramadi, have seen virtually no voting activity.

The BBC never even mentions that these three cities had to be cleared of terrorists with major military actions in the past three months, and that they have always been considered too sympathetic to Zarqawi to cooperate with the elections. We know, however, that Baghdad has seen significant turnout despite a number of suicide bombers on the west side of town. Fox News reports at 2:01 CT (11 am Baghdad) that they have counted seven or eight attacks; significant, but far below what was expected.
Right now, the turnout in other areas appears to be spectacular. The residents of the three towns mentioned by the BBC will wind up marginalizing themselves. They stuck with the wrong horse today.