Every report I read tells me about how the Iraqi Elections this Sunday were a rousing success. There was a an unpredictably high turnout and very little violence or loss of life (by Iraq standards, anyway.) The wingnuts are going crazy and are chiding every left-wing Bush-basher like they do whenever they get a wafer-thin mint of good news.

OK, so in many cases the people were voting for secret candidates only identified by their party affiliation. That’s not so different than when we vote for 2nd assistant deputy assemblyman simply because he has an (R) or a (D) behind his name. And sure, most of the Sunni’s didn’t vote, because they had no chance of winning anyway and protested the inevitable election of a Shia-dominated government. We have that, too, we just call them the Greens and Libertarians, but at least they have the decency to throw their votes away in protest.

I will let the wingers have their moment of glory. Elections are always a good thing, even partial, secret, and tertiary elections (the Iraqis were voting for an assembly that would name a Council that would choose a President… makes the Electoral College seem downright direct!) And even though the exit polls are showing that the majority of voters came to make their voices heard on the sole of issue of “we want Americans out of our country!”, that’s fine too, because I agree with them.

So revel in the democracy! I remember Bush declaring the “Mission Accomplished” and plenty more soldiers have died since then. How many more will die after “Democracy Accomplished”? An election does not a safe, stable democracy make. There have been elections in Haiti, in Venezuela, in many places that have gone to hell in a handbasket following an election.

The only thing I fear is that too many people will rewrite history regarding why our soldiers are dying there. It is happening already. The president never stood in a State of the Union speech telling us how urgent it was to bring about an Iraqi election. I never once heard Colin Powell at the UN telling the delegates that our number one goal was an Iraqi election. Kindasleezzy Lies never said that we couldn’t wait for the Iraqi election to be a mushroom cloud. I agree that spreading democracy is a laudable goal — so laudable that we should be given that as the initial reason to invade a country that never attacked us. We should be given the chance to debate whether an Iraqi election is worth 1,438 American Lives and $280,000,000,000 taxpayer dollars.

The end never justifies the means. All of you who are gloating over the Iraqi elections should never forget that wisdom. I seriously hope Bush is right and that this election will pacify Iraq, create a model democracy in the Middle East, and create a domino effect leading to more freedom throughout the region. But then I remember the last time in history we had political theories about dominoes, and I remember that everyone in this administration has been proven to be a liar.

Only time will tell.

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