Any boomer will remember back to the days when the irreverent comedy team of Rowan and Martin took good natured jabs at people of all stripes, and politicians from both sides of the aisle, on their weekly revue called Laugh In. One of their weekly features was called the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate Award, and they would announce a winner each week, usually, this was pure satire.
In no way satirical, yet much more fateful, were the millions of purple ink-stained fingers proudly waved in the air for photo-journalists and media cameras yesterday in Iraq. The numbers are not in yet, but they clearly will surpass the courageous turnout in the previous two elections. Early estimates place the turnout as high as 11 million of the estimated 15 million registered voters in Iraq. [When was the last time the U.S. turnout approached 73%?] Even better news was the fact that the Sunnis, the minority that essentially ruled Iraq under Saddam Hussein, are finally embracing the process after marginalizing themselves. The Sunnis are the main source of Iraqi insurgents. [Not to be confused with their imported partners in crime, Al Qaeda in Iraq.]
There are some things to be inferred from this event, and, indeed, from the previous elections.
First, while we view these millions of voters as being courageous, and they are, indeed, courageous for risking life and limb by braving terrorist attacks simply to go and vote, they do so because they have embraced the process, and want to be willing participants in the formation of their own government. After three decades of sham elections under Hussein, they now have an honest chance to make a difference, and take part in the process of deciding how the government will be formed, what its makeup will be, and how it will govern.
Second, the unmistakable imprint of the United States, and in particular, the policies of President George W. Bush, is clear in these events. The President has made good on his promise to bring democracy to that part of the world. First in Afghanistan, and now in Iraq. The people are choosing their form of government, and those who will run it. Be clear on this: that was an impossibility in Afghanistan under the Taliban, and in Iraq under Saddam Hussein and his Baathist thugs.
Third, the election turnout yesterday is a clear, and unequivocal repudiation of the “cut and run” cat-calls of late by about a half-dozen or so of our most (in)famous braying jackasses from across the aisle, namely Dean, Reid, Pelosi, Murtha, Schumer, Kennedy, and Kerry. [How did an honorable man like Jack Murtha get himself turned around enough to get mixed up with that gang of cowards?] These folks (the named, not the Iraqis!) not only dishonor the more than 2,000 fallen American fighting men and women, and the many wounded, indeed, all who have served in this effort of bringing democracy to a world that had no concept of it, but they dishonor the courage of the 11 million who are actively participating in the rebuilding of their own country, and doing so with the help of the United States of America. They do this because they want to win politically, and without a message, they must insult, defame, and tarnish all successes, making them failures.
John Kerry was a traitor to the United States during the Vietnam War, in the actions he took, and the words he spoke after returning to the U.S. from “serving” there with the U.S. Navy. [Even his own mates from the unit he was in made a strong case casting doubt on his take on his own service there. In fairness, there was an event where he saved a crewman’s life for which he should be commended, but just about every other detail of his stint has been discredited by those who served along side of him.]
John Kerry has called our president a liar. John Kerry has called for the U.S. to cut and run just like he did in the early 1970s when he was actively aiding and abetting the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong in their fight against the United States. U.S. prisoners of war held in the “Hanoi Hilton” have testified that Kerry’s actions added as much as a year to their imprisonment, torture, and near starvation, by giving encouragement to our enemies, their captors.
Now he is doing the same thing, only this time, it is over Iraq. His words, his stand, his baseless accusations provide aid and comfort to Al Qaeda, to Usama bin Laden, and to Zarqawi’s Al Qaeda in Iraq. Kerry’s attacks on the administration, his claim that President Bush has no plan in Iraq, that President Bush has a plan for failure in Iraq, that we cannot win in Iraq, that we are causing the insurgency in Iraq, provide encouragement to our enemies. Not only are they encouraged by Kerry’s actions and words, they use them to recruit, to raise money, and to step up their attacks.
To this, THE CENTRIST says, not this time John! If anyone is responsible for the insurgency in Iraq being as powerful and long-lived as it is, it is the people named above, the “Friends of John Kerry”, and their powerful voice in the media. They are the reason the people of this nation have been shielded from the facts:
- that thousands of new schools have opened in Iraq and are busy educating their children in a democracy;
- that far more Iraqi homes have electricity, TVs, telephones, computers, and internet connections now than ever did under Saddam Hussein;
- that Iraq is pumping oil and selling it to profit the people of Iraq, not just Saddam and his Baathist henchman, or a few dozen long-nosed Frenchmen;
- that Iraqi police and military forces now fully protect more than half of the nation; that enlistments in the Iraqi police and military are up in spite of suicide murderers blowing themselves up in long lines of recruits;
- that three enormously important elections have been held with relative security over the past year;
- that Iraqi businesses are up, running and thriving in an economy that, savaged by decades of oppression under Saddam Hussein, and from the war that toppled him from power, has made a remarkable recovery. Though it still has a long way to go, the Iraqi economy is thriving;
- and that an Iraqi Constitution is being adopted in far less time than it took the United States to adopt our own.
Nope, not this time John. Take your treasonous, traitorous talk somewhere else where it will be much more appreciated, like France, Canada, or even Iran. Shoot, you’d fit in fine with the president of Iran, he has his feet rooted in as much reality as you do, John.
So, THE CENTRIST raises the Flying Purple Finger of Fate to John Kerry, for his Vietnam turncoat act redux. Can you guess which finger it is?
THE CENTRIST
Cartoon resource: Glen McCoy, ©2005 Belleville News-Democrat
"It is the duty of every citizen according to his best capacities to give validity to his convictions in political affairs. " Albert Einstein
Copyright © 2005, “
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