Sullivan - AN EMAIL FROM A WAR CRITIC: Here's a fair and encouraging email:
I'm pretty anti-Bush now, and I'm upset about why we went to war, and about the way we've prosecuted it since we've gone in. That imposes a certain bias on me, and I think that it's led me to miss the boat on a fairly big aspect of what's going on in iraq with respect to the election.
The majority of iraqis are pro-democracy, and this election is enormously important to them. You can hear it in the interviews, and you can see it in the television images of voters walking by, holding up their blue fingers.
Obviously, Iraq is a divided country, and obviously, there are a lot of people who are fighting against democracy. We haven't been able to bring those people on board, and we haven't been able to do enough to prevent them from terrorizing others into staying away from the process. There are some very serious problems, and there have been some very serious failures.
But in a sense, that just makes what's going on among pro-democracy iraqis all the more remarkable and praiseworthy.
I don't know who is going to win, or what their policies will be, or how the new government will respond to the anti-democratic insurgency. But I do know that a lot of people voted, that they were eager to vote, that they were proud to vote, and that the turn out in the pro-democracy sections of the country was very high.
Honestly, I think the failure of people on the left to see and appreciate what's happening is akin to the failure of the people on the right to see the serious problems in the way we've administered the occupation.
I think the anti-war left's failure to believe in democracy is a greater failing than the pro-war right's failure to grapple with some of the serious failings of the endeavor. But I hope today that everyone, whatever their view of the war or occupation, can rejoice in the defeat of evil and terror. It's truly inspiring. |
