I posted this on another thread, but thought you would enjoy it so in case you are not on that thread, here is an email received today from a friend of a friend who is stationed in Baghdad. jdn
-----Original Message-----
From: Edward McDonnell III [mailto:nedmcd@yahoo.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2005 4:46 PM
From: Edward McDonnell III
Subject: Week 25: ELECTION DAY; part #1...The Iraqis I admire most are blind-copied (to protect their identities)
It has been an extraordinary day. Many years ago I was in an auto accident that totaled the car and almost knocked a telephone pole over. I was alone and managed to emerge unscathed. I remember my mother telling me that I was destined for something. I did not buy into that then; now, just being here – today, in Baghdad – I am re-considering my mother’s rather grandiose remark of relief.
Not that I did anything in particular; I did not – ten million Iraqis did (if my numbers and arithmetic skills are okay). A 72% turn-out happily puts to shame the participation numbers in the U.S. elections. This is a day that I sincerely wish would never end…
§ Sources inside the U.S. embassy say that reports came in of lines of 800 people long tallied in Fallujah. Fallujah! Who would have thought that to be possible?
§ Three locations in Baghdad actually ran out of ballots.
§ Poll-watchers reported that people told them that they had walked eight miles – that is to say: 15,000 strides toward freedom – walk on, Iraq.
§ Abu Ghraib, as nasty a part of town as it is a memory for us, had people (mainly Sunnis, I believe) waiting for hours – we are talking three hundred minutes or more, here: stand tall, Iraq.
§ My first prediction appears to be coming true – no, more accurately, the Iraqis appear to be speaking out and repudiating any moral stature of this insurgency.
§ Initial reports indicate that under fifty people have died thus far; that exceeds four dozen too many but so much less murder than I had feared.
§ Insurgents whizzing mortars and rockets overhead in the morning while others blew themselves up in car-bombs throughout the day failed to slow, let alone stem, the tide; in fact, I think it increased the determination of a long-suffering people to repudiate the insurgency in the best way they could as average Joes / Joans: by simply voting.
§ Speaking with some voters left me with the distinct impression that Iraqis voted for their country first, not allowing religious differences to sway their opinions.
§ Reports of Iraqis notifying their police and even our Marines to prevent car-bombs, suicide bombers or guys with guns certainly helped send the message to these sociopaths: you may kill us but you shall not own us.
§ The police and national guard units, as well as battalions of carbinieri equivalents, performed their duties admirably; perhaps belying my second prediction of the end of the U.S.-led military oversight by mid-2006; it may be earlier…RIGHT ON, IRAQ.
What a marvelous day. This week, the West remembers Auschwitz, as well we should, but let us hope that no one forgets this week also as a week when simple folk, many who could not read but knew how to listen to the stirrings in their breasts, acted in unison with extraordinary courage. Simply by putting on foot in front of the other. One can only remain awed at how the cradle of civilization proved to be its crowning glory, if only for a day.
These people, so beaten and so helpless, defied all of that and re-asserted the rule of law their ancestors established three millennia ago. Arafat may be turning over in his grave – as are the two sons of Saddam, I am sure – but Hammurabi (sp?), harsh though he was, must be doing cart-wheels. His children laughed in the face of what must have seemed like certain murder or maiming this morning with the fearsome, never monotonous, pounding of mortars, rockets and explosives. They voted.
And, I am proud to say, their policemen and National Guard served them well. There has been a lot of talk of Iraqis running from fights in recent months. That had been a source of discouragement. Not so, today. Why? Because today counted. Their families, tribal buddies, fellow faithful and neighbours were standing in line – sometimes for hours – like sitting ducks. The policemen had to rise to the occasion and they wrote out, in a confident Arabic hand, the destiny of these voters and of their people.
While their fellow democrats – Ukrainians, Yanks, Aussies, Brits, Dutch, Italians, NATOites et al. – stood at the ready and sometimes rushed in to help, this was a day in which Iraqis called the shots. And those called shots, to put it tritely (and truthfully), will be heard round the world in the years to come.
Iraq got to be Iraq again and unfurled a flag of pride, determination and justice. As the young, now happily married, translator said to me when we last talked (i.e., on her last day) a month ago: “God bless President Bush.” Yet, tonight, brave and oppressed people everywhere can say with a resonance that repudiates murderers masquerading as Muslims: “May Allah bless the people of Iraq, forever.” Sadly, more Iraqis will likely die; Americans, too. And many more will be injured before the gangsters are outta here once and for all.
But one can feel a new resolve, a growing confidence that Iraqis want their country back – sooner rather than later. Insurgent-free and without the military dominance of the Coalition. That will happen, maybe by the end of the year…yippeeee!! That means I may well be coming home soon to sell bonds and build a new life for me.
I was so fearful of the day’s prospects after the fatal rocket attack last evening against the Embassy by the bastards. An unmanned air vehicle or maybe a balloon – whatever, it was called a drone – got the bastards on visual. The Iraqi police busted their butts in twenty minutes. I walked up to the top of a high tower last night near the Embassy and talked with a young Marine sniper for the better part of an hour. It was eerily quiet; outside of rare bursts of gun-fire in the distance, one could only hear the caw of crows warming up for a certain feast for the day ahead.
The Marine, perhaps twenty years old, and I spoke somewhat apprehensively; the following day would be telling if it failed. That America had failed in her bold and purposeful initiative; our risk had sunk into ruin. The morning started off equally ominously with so many things blowing through the air that one could not even here the crows – thousands of them – singing as they migrate through Baghdad.
To top it off, I was obsessed about the two things:
Ø Suicide murderers blowing away innocents before they voted;
Ø Bastards blowing away the marked people after their votes (i.e., people with ink, which one could plainly see).
I doubt I will ever again feel this alive for being DEAD WRONG again.
Another note to follow shortly to chronicle my unhistoric – if belatedly histrionic – role on this magical day. I closed the day at sunset, walking alone in the remoter part of my office complex and just letting the breeze refresh me as I watched another splendid sunset, timed to ring out the contemplative majesty displayed by ten million people. |
