Iraqis elect a parliament today. Voting is one of the welcome developments of this war. But the act of dropping a ballot in a box matters less than the act of where one marks that ballot. In other words, how you vote matters more than that you vote. And in a nation where democracy has never grabbed root, and where 60 percent of the adult population can neither read nor write, the prospects of the populace making enlightened choices remain low. Ballots have placed in power George Washington. Ballots have placed in power Adolf Hitler. Let's hope that Iraqis elect representatives closer to the former than to the latter. Let's not, through a confusion of self-government for good government, assume that.

Wisdom and skepticism are a strong combination. Reminds me of Yasser Arafat receiving 87% of the vote in 1996 for president of the Palestinian National Authority.

I can only hope you guys are being overly pessimistic. The one factor we have working for a more stable and enlightened democracy is the split between the variousl ethnic groups, all of whom are sizeable: Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis. Then again, the Hutus and Tutsis were both sizeable groups in Rwanda. Regardless, it's a heckuva turn of events, coming as quickly as it has after the overthrow of Saddam.

By the way, I still think it would have been better to shoot that particular rat in his hole, just as it would have been better to press on to Bagdad in 1990.

Merry Christmas to all, and Happy Chanukah to my Jewish bretheren!

Just trying not be an "intellectual moron" about it.

Illiterate is not the same thing as stupid. Education does not necessarily equate to intelligence or enlightenment.

In my humble opinion, Mr. Flynn is a pessimist because he has been a vocal critic of the war in Iraq; therefore, there must be a cloud over every silver lining to justify his discontent.

People don't like to be proven wrong. It indicates that they aren't as smart as they like to imagine they are.

"Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously."
--Gilbert Keith Chesterton

PS:

Hitler wasn't elected. He was appointed Chancellor by Hindenburg after Hindenburg defeated Hitler in the Presidential election of 1932. Hitler succeeded Hindenburg upon the President's death in 1934.

After the Nazi Party failed to gain a majority in the legislature through the election process, Hitler negotiated a merger with another party in order to achieve the majority he desired. After nefariously engineering a majority party under his control, he had them pass the "Law of Empowerment" which basically named him as dictator. He was never legitimately elected.

That doesn't undermine the validity of your point, there simply were better examples you could have used to make said point.

Robert Mugabe would have been an excellent example.

A truck full of fake ballots crashed and was discovered on this momentus day. Seems like the Iraqis are learning well, how to follow in the footsteps of American "democracy". Dan, wake up.

Curtis: The Nazis received 37 percent of the vote in the 1932 election. In March of 1933, the Nazis won 44 percent of the vote. You say the Nazis never won a majority of votes, which is correct, but in their system in which there is an alphabet-soup collection of parties, receiving a plurality of votes, and then combining with a smaller party (or parties) to form a majority, constitutes winning. That's what the Nazis did. They won the most votes and combined with a smaller party. Since Hitler was the leader of the Nazis, his ascension to power occured within the democratic process. He was appointed chancellor, but that was the result of him being the leader of the party that won the most votes. Your fixation with the Nazis failing to win "a majority," I suspect, stems from your familiarity with our two-party system where the goal is generally to win a majority. When there's three parties, four parties, five parties, the goal is to get a plurality and combine with another party to get a majority. That's what Hitler did. If Hitler didn't win the 1933 elections, who did Curtis?

The Iraqis had a 70% turnout...

just imagine what would ever happen if we could pull a 70% turnout for any of our elections.

*Poof*

and there were no more republicans in office....

Curtis: Three points. (1) The parliamenatry, many-party democratic system of Iraq is much closer to the parliamentary, many-party democratic system of 30s Germany than it is to America's two-party, federated and presidential system. So why is the example of Hitler ill-chosen? (2) No one said that 'illiterate is the same thing as stupid.' But you imply that literacy is unrelated to the ability to be vote well. That's implausible, to say the least. (3) Regarding _this_ war, no prowar person has the credibility to say to an antiwar person: "People don't like to be proven wrong. It indicates that they aren't as smart as they like to imagine they are," unless they are talking about themselves.

I'll concede the "Hitler" point to make another. You use Hitler's ascention to power as an example of poorly exercising the right to vote yet imply that the illiteracy rate of the Iraqis is a primary factor in your pessimistic view of their ability to select adequate leadership. Was Germany in the 30's 60 percent illiterate? I did a quick internet search but couldn't find that data in the limited time I have, however I doubt that illiteracy was a problem in Germany in the 1930's.

I have no scientific data to back this up but it's only my opinion anyway so here goes: I don't think that literacy has much to do with effectively selecting national leaders. Most people vote in their own self-interest anyway. They vote for the guy who looks like them, talks like them and acts like them and who they feel will impact their lives in the most advantageous (or least heinous) way. Sometimes that tendency results in the people being fleeced into electing someone who shouldn't be in power. It happens in countries with high literacy rates as well as countries with low literacy rates.

"no prowar person has the credibility to say to an antiwar person..."

Say what??? First of all, perhaps I phrased my sentiment in too condescending of tone. Please forgive me for gloating a little bit. Doom sayers about the Iraq war have been predicting disaster from the beginning. Remember the predictions of tens of thousands of casualties just in taking Baghdad? Despite the MSM and other's penchant for ignoring any good news and highlighting every minor setback (including touting huge victories as setbacks simply because some brave Americans lost their lives in achieving the victory), the war in Iraq has been an unqualified success. We make progress every day, the majority of Iraqis are thankful that we are there and even the ones that want us out are realizing that the best way to get us out is to participate in the political process, not continue their violent path.

I won't belabor the points, but every step the Iraqis take toward an independent and democratic society, the more the doomsayers grasp at straws to find ANYTHING to throw cold water on things. Mr. Flynn's post is simply a prime example of the resistance of said doom sayers to admit that anything good might come of this war.

It isn't over yet and the establishment of a strong, stable, democratic society in Iraq is far from certain. But things are looking better every day.

No one said that this endeavor would be without risk and no one said that the end result of a stable democratic Iraq was guaranteed...but that is the goal and only time (and the Iraqi people themselves) will tell whether that goal will be met or not.

And my credibility is just fine, thank you.

Curtis, you write: "Mr. Flynn's post is simply a prime example of the resistance of said doom sayers to admit that anything good might come of this war." In the second line of the above post, I wrote: "Voting is one of the welcome developments of this war." Saddam Hussein in a prison cell is another. There have been many positive developments regarding the war. I believe they have been outweighed by the negative results--thousands of American deaths, tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths, hundreds of billions of American dollars spent on a foreign country, erosion of American credibility because of WMD fiasco, etc. Prior to the war, I also said in a very public manner that the good the war would bring (removing Saddam) would be outweighed by the bad. Do you care to retract your false statement--shown to be false by the text of the very post you're commenting on--that appears above?

"...the war in Iraq has been an unqualified success." -Curtis

I think the primary goal of the war was getting Saddam's WMD so that he couldn't give it to terrorists to attack the US homeland, and that the secondary goal was to establish a better government in Iraq in hopes of encouraging a better, more American dream-style life in the middle east to prevent terrorism in the long run. Now, success is generally measured by the meeting of one's goals. 'Unqualified' would imply complete accomplishment of them.

Now, tell me if I'm wrong: the first goal was not accomplished _by the war_, and the second goal has not (yet) been accomplished. We might know in a few years that it won't be accomplished, but before we can have even an inkling that it has been acheived, we will have to wait about 20-30 years. Don't you think?

Dan, I'm not quite sure what you meant by "combine with another party." In the 1992 election, Bush senior lost to Clinton only because Ross Perot siphoned off some votes that would have gone to Bush. Clinton's win, however, was the larger of the several totals for each candidate (Nader was also in there, and so were the Libertarians). No votes were "combined" with anyone else's. If you have three candidates, the one with the most votes wins. I'm not sure about how Germany did it in the thirties, but, most likely, the Nazis had the largest tally of the several parties running.

Gary: The American system is different than most governing systems in Europe. So, Perot and Bush Sr. couldn't have combined to block Clinton under the American system. Under the German system, they could've effectively blocked Herr Clinton, or, Herr Clinton and Herr Perot could have combined, or Herr Clinton and Herr Bush Sr. could have combined to govern. For presidential elections, you need a majority of votes--electoral votes--to become president. In a parliamentary system, for instance, parties regularly combine forces with other parties to make majorities. In that type of a system, the party that gets the most votes is not necessarily the party that gets power. And since getting a majority is a rarity in countries with many, many parties, the usual course of action is to combine forces to make a government. It's not as it is here in the United States. When the Nazis got the most votes in the German elections, it didn't necessarily mean that they would govern. To govern, they needed a majority, and to get a majority they needed to combine forces with another party. They did this, so they governed. Had all of the other parties combined against the Nazis, even though the Nazis received the highest number of votes, the Nazis would have been effectively shut out of power. I hope that explains things, but if it doesn't perhaps readers with a more complete understanding of foreign systems can chime in. To tie all this into the original post, the Iraqi system, in that it combines federalism with a parliamentary system, reminds me a bit of the current German system. I'm sure there are all sorts of differences, but on the surface they appear similar.

"A truck full of fake ballots crashed and was discovered on this momentus day. Seems like the Iraqis are learning well, how to follow in the footsteps of American "democracy". Dan, wake up." - Knownee

Actually, the trucks were Iranian.

"I believe they have been outweighed by the negative results--thousands of American deaths, tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths, hundreds of billions of American dollars spent on a foreign country, erosion of American credibility because of WMD fiasco, etc."

Saddam Hussein has been shown to have supported a plethora of international terrorist agencies, to have possessed banned long range missiles, dual use chemical and biological materials,to have frozen programs that were supposed to have been banned, and more.

Overall, the casus belli, that there was a serious danger of WMD or WMD material proliferation from Saddam Hussein's government to international terrorists, has been shown to be accurate.

For your consideration:

http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/new/documents/quarterly_reports/s-2004-435.pdf

http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/new/documents/quarterly_reports/s-2005-351.pdf

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1051125568653&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&DPL=JvsODSH7Aw0u%2bwoQO%2bYJDSbkFxAj%2bwoUO%2bYNDSbgFxMn%2bwkVO%2bUODSXhFxMv%2bwkYO%2bQKDSTkFxUn%2bw8QO%2bMIDSPjFxUi%2bw8XO%2bMMDSPvFxUu%2bw4RO%2bIIDSLhOw%3d%3d&tacodalogin=yes

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/345qrbbj.asp

http://www.cnsnews.com/specialreports/2004/exclusive17.asp

http://www.cnsnews.com/PDF/2004/enPage17.pdf

http://www.cnsnews.com/specialreports/2004/mustardgas.asp

http://www.cnsnews.com/specialreports/2004/anthrax.asp

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Protected/Articles/000/000/006/380eerto.asp

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/388astht.asp?pg=2

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/850ikvwv.asp

http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Comment/ByronYork/111705.html

http://www.aim.org/media_monitor/A76_0_2_0_C/

http://www.aim.org/media_monitor/A75_0_2_0_C/

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewSpecialReports.asp?Page=%5CSpecialReports%5Carchive%5C200410%5CSPE20041004a.html

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/008190.php

http://www.hudson.org/files/publications/murdocksaddamarticle.pdf

http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/index.html

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1199662004

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005133

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/259gqzrw.asp

http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/248eaurh.asp

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/152lndzv.asp

http://www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200507011134.asp

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE160092001?open&of=ENG-JOR

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2590265.stm

http://www.factcheck.org/article222.html

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1051445983743&call_pageid=968332188854&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1051125568653&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&DPL=JvsODSH7Aw0u%2bwoQO%2bYJDSbkFxAj%2bwoUO%2bYNDSbgFxMn%2bwkVO%2bUODSXhFxMv%2bwkYO%2bQKDSTkFxUn%2bw8QO%2bMIDSPjFxUi%2bw8XO%2bMMDSPvFxUu%2bw4RO%2bIIDSLhOw%3d%3d&tacodalogin=yes

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/345qrbbj.asp

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007584

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/880qqeoh.asp

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/884ygeya.asp

http://www.iraqwatch.org/un/unscresolutions/s-res-687.htm

http://www.fas.org/irp/world/iraq/956-tni.htm

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/804yqqnr.asp?pg=1

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2002/SC7564.doc.htm

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4661

http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Booklets/Iraq/iraqindex.html

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/salman_pak.htm

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/sarticle.php?id=10101&o=DIB004

The elections in Iraq are not developing spontaneously from the Iraqi people, but are part of a top-down orchestrated event among the U.S. occupiers. If American troops had left after Bush made his stupid Mission Accomplish speech would there have been elections? If Iraq isn't nourishing the civil institutions necessary to maintain a functional democracy then all the elections we've had thus far are merely cosmetic. Nothing fundamental in Iraq has changed. If the U.S. were to announce they were going to give away free Cadillacs to any Iraq who voted the turnout would be even larger and I'm sure all the Bush cultists would herald the event as the coming of entrepreneurial capitalism to Iraq. "All the nasayers thought Iraq wouldn't be another Germany. But they were wrong."

"The elections in Iraq are not developing spontaneously from the Iraqi people, but are part of a top-down orchestrated event among the U.S. occupiers. If American troops had left after Bush made his stupid Mission Accomplish speech would there have been elections? If Iraq isn't nourishing the civil institutions necessary to maintain a functional democracy then all the elections we've had thus far are merely cosmetic. Nothing fundamental in Iraq has changed. If the U.S. were to announce they were going to give away free Cadillacs to any Iraq who voted the turnout would be even larger and I'm sure all the Bush cultists would herald the event as the coming of entrepreneurial capitalism to Iraq. "All the nasayers thought Iraq wouldn't be another Germany. But they were wrong."

The historical problem being that the democratic elections in Japan, Germany, and Italy were all top down creations of the American occupiers as well. None of those nations had any real tradition of democracy. Germany, with the strongest democratic credentials of the three of them, had experiance about maybe twenty years of a real democracy in their national history.

Ben: Germany, Japan, and Italy all had democratic elections prior to the postwar occupations. Your premise, though convenient to your argument, isn't true.

Iraq had elections prior to Saddam's rise to power also.

As anti-war conservatives are so often fond of saying, elections do not a democracy make. Neither Germany, Japan, or Italy had ever had prolonged experiance with a Liberal society.

Ben: Your point is ridiculous. Italy, Germany, and Japan all had experience in self-government prior to WWII. Their elections did not resemble anything like the elections of Saddam Hussein's Iraq. No person who knows anything about the histories of these countries would make the comparison that you make. The past, it seems, is only important for you in vindicating your present political position. I find this base.

Ben,

If elections "do not a democracy make," then why celebrate the recent election in Iraq as some sort of turning point? Where is Iraq's history of a liberal society?

Dan: I thoroughly disagree.

Germany: Germany as a unified nation-state came into being with Otto von Bismarck's unification of the various Germanic states in the early 20th century. This state was, more or less, run solely by Mr. Bismarck until his dismissal by Kaiser Wilhelm II. Wilhelm II then ran roughshod over Germany's supposed democratic controls on his power until he abdicated in 1918. The Weimar Republic was then conjured into being by the victorious allies at the end of World War I. It lasted for a few short decades before Hitler took total power. Germany lacks the long pedigree of liberal self government that France, Britain, and the United States are possessed of. The times when Germany has been a democratic societies have been the times when liberalism is forced on it from the outside.

Italy: Italy was slowly unified by a variety of small time warlords over a period of many years, until it existed as two distinct states, the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. In 1870 the Kingdom of Italy was concieved as a monarchial society with it's capital at Rome, under the authority of the throne of the Kingdom of Sardinia. Republican elements within the Italian nationalist and unification movement are stamped out.

A parliament would later be formed, and rather quickly result in the rise of Benito Mussolini to power as Italy's absolute dictator.

Japan: Japan existed as some form of dicatorial society throughout it's history. Some liberal trappings were tacked on as Japan rose to become a major world power, but ultimate authority over the state with the God-Emperor (this is still the case in many ways). Japan's first longtime experiance with liberalism began in 1945.

Eric: The elections are a turning point, I see no reason not to celebrate them as such. But to suggest that Iraqi elections = A liberal republican society in Iraq is folly.

Ben writes: "Germany as a unified nation-state came into being with Otto von Bismarck's unification of the various Germanic states in the early 20th century." Otto von Bismark died in 1898.

LOL, yea, that's a pretty embarrassing mistake. It happened in the late 19th century.

Democracy is great, even if it creates an illiberal democracy and an ally of Iran, right? Iran was a big winner in this venture. The Iraqi leadership (the Shiite ones) spent decades there and owe much to them, have been financed and supported by them, and further Iran has heavily infiltrated Iraqi intelligence and they are in talks for joint military exercises.