You can't fight the will of a people!

For those of you who think this vote in Iraq is of little importance, I actually believe this could be a turning point for the entire region and the world. It's clear from the stories you here about Iraq's facing death by voting and so putting their lives on the line for a chance at a free system just as Americans have done thru our history and in Iraq. The NYTimes has one such story in their International addition today which goes:

For an instant, Ms. Musawi, a 22-year-old physical therapist, thought it might be too dangerous to go to the polls. "And then, hearing those explosions, it occurred to me - the insurgents are weak, they are afraid of democracy, they are losing," Ms. Musawi said, standing in the Marjayoon Primary School, her polling place. "So I got my husband, and I got my parents and we all came out and voted together."

The Times quotes 80-year-old Rashid Majid: "We have freedom now, we have human rights, we have democracy. We will invite the insurgents to take part in our system. If they do, we will welcome them. If they don't, we will kill them."

And a 33 yr old election worker: "Do you hear that, do you hear the bombs?" said Hassan Jawad, a 33-year-old election worker at Lebanon High School, calling over the thud of an exploding shell. "We don't care. Do you understand? We don't care." "We all have to die," Mr. Jawad said. "To die for this, well, at least I will be dying for something."

I found this NYTimes piece on WSJ best of the web by Taranto, and I found his introduction to his commentary on this election appropriate in lumping together a few evil men with some not so obviously evil to some, his intro goes like this:

Yesterday was a great day to be an American, and an even better day to be an Iraqi. Notwithstanding the best efforts of Osama bin Laden, Barbara Boxer, Jacques Chirac, Ted Kennedy, Saddam Hussein and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, millions of Iraqis cast their first free ballots. The scenes of joyous Iraqis embracing freedom were as moving as watching Germans dance on the Berlin Wall 15 years ago--and all the more impressive given that Iraqi voters faced real physical danger from terrorists seeking a return to tyranny.