Iraq redux

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
—“Blackbird,” Lennon & McCartney

I’m certainly behind in my time. I think this is the longest gap between blogs since the Hell’s Kitchen Dispatch went online last November. Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you.

I don’t have much to add about the elections in Iraq. My bet is on some exotic form of democracy taking root and flourishing there. I mean, even Mark Brown, a liberal columnist in Chicago, is having second thoughts.

Iraq has survived the brutality of Saddam, the appalling violence of the Islamic lunatic fringe, the greed-mongering of the UN oil-for-food scandal, and the bombast of pundits of every political stripe. Iraq will outlive you and me.

And the coalition soldiers who served there will one day tell their grandchildren of the brave men and women who died in the cause of bringing freedom to a people whose oppression mattered not to most of the world. Their grandchildren will find it hard to believe that most of the world could be so shortsighted, so cold. But they’ll learn.

On Veterans Day these aging soldiers will march in parades and be cheered by aging civilians who protested the Iraq War and burned President Bush in effigy. Time doesn’t necessarily heal wounds, but it can be oh so forgiving on the details.

The last I heard, the numbers show that up to 60% of registered Iraqis turned out to cast ballots—sometimes walking miles to do so—amid the death threats and tantrums of a wicked insurgency that is slowly melting, melting. Viewing the video feeds beamed back to the West throughout last Sunday’s election, I had never seen so much joy and resolve in so many faces. Freedom is precious. Freedom is worth dying for. The 37% of registered American voters who sat out last year’s election should take note.