Shame on Us

Once again we are being treated to a lesson in democracy from the middle east. Why is it that the Iraqi people will risk life and property to go to the polling place, and many of us will not get off the couch to vote? The turnout in Iraq for this election is slightly lower than previously recorded, but these excited new democrats (small "d") still vote in numbers two to three times what we do.

The AP news article about the election pictures this woman proudly displaying her ballot proof finger, and the text mentions that her countrymen might wish they were bulletproof. Once again, though not as strongly as in the past, the forces of Islamic tyranny are threatening violence against any who dare to exercise their right to freely choose their leaders. Could there be a more stark contrast of ideologies than this: one group wants the freedom to choose who will lead them; the other group wants to "lead" by force of arms.

I know political memory in the US is dreadfully short, but I wonder if anyone can recall the argument waged by the enlightened intellectual progressives against poor benighted George W. Bush's plan to bring democracy to Iraq. Much of the antil-war sentiment was based on the assumption that it was a fool's errand to offer democracy to people in the middle east. According to genteel opinion, the Arabs were too steeped in centuries old tribal ways to appreciate the finer points of democratic political governance.

It seems the experts were wrong. A couple hundred thousand Iraqi troops kept the peace this week and allowed the people to make their own choices with blessedly little violence. Note that those peacekeepers were Iraqi troops, trained by the US to be sure, but home grown nonetheless. No "invaders" were forcing a fairy tale election on a reluctant populace. Hundreds of candidates from across the political spectrum vied for the chance to make policy and direct the nurture of the growing freedom. It seems pretty clear that no one party will emerge dominant, but coalitions have been working so far; it is likely they will yet.

I would be the fool if I expected to hear, "Attaboy, George," from the left side of the aisle. It would be beyond fantasy to imagine that even one of the outspoken critics of the war in Iraq would apologize for speaking so rudely now that he is proven wrong. I mourn the absence of simple courtesy from our politics. What's at stake is more than mere civility; there is a serious consequence of the refusal to admit fault in this case: it allows the myth that Iraq was a bad war to survive unchallenged. I care not a whit for the reputations of those who are too small to admit their mistake, but I care deeply about what their mistaken ideas foster in the national mind.

I gave a writing assignment recently, asking my students to tell me about their heroes, modeling their essays after one of my blog posts. Grading that set of papers was one of the most encouraging things I have done in a long time. But the relevant part of this story is that one of my students broke down in tears partway through the assignment and had to leave the room. When she returned, she handed in her essay saying that she could not continue because the topic was too painful emotionally. I read later that her hero was a young man who died in Iraq one day before he was due to come home. Her tears were not just that he died, but that in her mind his sacrifice was meaningless.

At the moment I read that, I almost cried. My son and tens of thousands like him went to the Gulf to lay the groundwork for the moment pictured above. To date, over four thousand brave, strong and true men and women have paid the ultimate price to purchase what that picture represents. The Bible says we must give honor to whom it is due; who deserves honor more than those who fight and die for freedom, no matter what flag it rises under? Shame on those who from lack of moral integrity perpetuate the myth that the Iraq war was a mistake. And shame of us if we don't take encouragement from those brave Iraqis and do our part in the land of the free and home of the brave.