Keith Devens .com

On the Iraq vote

I've been watching the voting situation in Iraq unfold and it looks incredibly encouraging. No major attacks and high voter turnout. The Western news coverage is beginning to kick up now that it's a decent hour, and I'm excited to see more images from the country. Iraqis are voting with not only their ballots, but by their feet in going to the polls. These images, that can be very emotionally arousing, and important for the Western audience as well as the greater Arab world. Sometimes only then will some of the pessimists truly get it.

The public opinion polls (done this month) of Iraqis' hopefulness for their country are already indicative of great strides. However, not many Americans, sadly some of the lawmakers calling for a pullout, and the greater Arab world probably don't read these polls. I'm sure some do, but discount them because they have a predetermined mindset about how this conflict will unfold. They do not want to change what they've already decided is inevitable--failure. When seeing the very real brutality replayed over and over, sometimes it becomes the only reality.

We now have a counterview not of our own making.

Power Line: Ho-hum, another Iraqi election:

Voter turnout apparently is heavy throughout Iraq, including many Sunni areas where participation is described as "steady and brisk." In Fallujah, formerly a hotbed of the terrorist insurgency in the Sunni heartland, more than 120,000 people reportedly had voted by early afternoon. Violence is said to be minimal, and the atmosphere at many polling places was festive.

Yet the defeatist Democrats would have us pull the plug (now or in a year or two) on this fledgling democracy, and turn our backs on the brave Iraqis who defy the terrorists by voting, before the Iraqi police and military are fully prepared to protect that democracy from the forces of evil -- al Qaeda and the Baathists. This from the party of Wilson, Roosevelt, and John Kennedy.

The Political Teen » Iraqi Voter: Anybody Who Doesn’t Appreciate America Can Go To Hell (VIDEO) (via Glenn Reynolds). That kicks ass. Watch the video!

Gateway Pundit has a roundup (via Glenn), including a shocking headline from the BBC.