The Iraqi elections today appear to have gone relatively well, or at least they've been fairly peaceful. The turnout hasn't been as good as the American media would like us to believe, but that's why you have to read press from around the world.
We saw Farenheit 9/11 this weekend. I can't stand Bush, but the film was pretty horrible. The first half of it was so preachy and drew such ridiculous points that it was hard to take even remotely seriously. The second half of it was I think more of a documentary, and even showed signs of being balanced here and there. Whatever bit of credibility that part of the film might have had was destroyed by the nonsense in the first part.
Anyway, whenever there's something going on in Iraq, I've always been sure to check out al Jazeera, because frankly when you combine that perspective with that of the American media, you can find something more resembling the truth.
This was a bummer of a year. The biggest disappointment that I have is that Bush was re-elected. What bothers me about it is that about half of Americans voted for the guy in light of the increasingly obvious notion that every reason for his war was bullshit. 1,400+ of our people came home in a box, more than 10,000+ have been wounded, and the forgotten statistic, tens of thousands of civilians in Iraq have been killed.
What I struggle with the most is that the people that signed up to protect us, our military service people, have to participate in this. I realize that it's what they signed up for, and that it's their job, but I'm astounded by the number of soldiers that are out there doing a job they don't believe in. I guess they're better people than I am, because I could never do that job out of a sense of duty. Regardless, they shouldn't have to die for a "cause" that doesn't serve our broad interest.
I hope we can get our people home soon, and I hope that Iraq is able to find strong internal leadership. The Sunni's seem pretty disenchanted, and I fear that's going to lead to civil war or continued violence.
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