Libertarian Leanings

Back in the dust

Item Number Three in my Top Ten for 2004 may still wallow in the dirt, so to speak.  Oh, I was up, I was down.  Then up again!  But if David Hornik of FrontPage Magazine is right then maybe things aren't so up. 

It will take time before we know the real implications of the Iraqi elections and how things will work out in that troubled country. At least we know, though, that the elections weren't won by a radical, anti-Semitic, anti-American movement.

Unfortunately, one can't say the same about the recent elections in Gaza, which were swept by Hamas -- an organization whose charter states:

"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.… There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.… Jihad is [our] path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of [our] wishes."

In my top ten events for the year 2004, I put the death of Yasser Arafat at number three on the list.  I saw him as a barrier to peace in the Middle East, and his death the removal of that barrier.  That may all be true, but it could be there are enough other barriers that a change of leadership in Palestine is irrelevant.

Last week in Gaza, Hamas won 77 out of 118 seats in municipal elections for ten towns. Hamas, when not engaging in suicide bombings and other terrorist activity, doubles as a social agency in Gaza and the West Bank that runs schools, kindergartens, and clinics. Indeed, last month Hamas scored a big win in West Bank municipal elections as well.

Perhaps I'm being overly pessimistic.  Maybe the elections in Palestine will ultimately result in peaceful resolution to their conflict over there.  But how does it change the situation, this business of having the elected responsible to the electors, if they are all of the same mind?

But Abbas's ongoing efforts to work out a modus vivendi with Hamas and the other terror organizations -- instead of confronting them and confiscating their weapons as mandated by the road map -- suggest his aim is, like Arafat before him, to find ways to work with them as part of a grand strategy.

Time will tell.  No doubt there is a grand strategy.  But what will the objective of this grand strategy turn out to be?

Heroism

Alaa's title for yesterday's entry "Suicide Bombers V. Suicide Voters", became literally true at a Baghdad polling station. 

Abdul Amir Kadhim, saw a man whom he suspected to be a suicide bomber, he threw himself on the man before he could get to the waiting line of people; and sure there was an explosion and this young man gave his life to save the others...

Hammorabi has the same story.

In one incident in Baghdad an Iraqi Hero suspected a terrorist. He chased him! The terrorist run and the Iraqi hero run after him and captured him. The terrorist blows himself with our hero who died to save many lives.

Iraqi heroism was the rule not the exception.  Again from Alaa.

At one station there was a suicide attack and several people fell; when people of the neighborhood heard of this, the waiting line suddenly swelled to three times in size; people rushed out of their homes and came running to wait in line; it was their way to express their defiance and anger at this crime. The examples of bravery and courage are too numerous to recount. People took courage from each other, as people came out others watched and did not want to be left out. It was something incredible to watch. Yes this was a historic day, a day to remember until our dying day. With one stroke, in a single day, the silent majority spoke and answered all the pundits and doubters, and those who spoke on their behalf. Yet we have been telling you this all along...

The dificult task of putting together a constitution lies ahead.  Structuring a government that has the necessary powers to provide security for its citizens in a terrorist world, while at the same time protecting their freedoms will not be an easy undertaking.  But it has been well started.  My hope is that the Transitional National Assembly will carry on as courageously and altruistically as the people who have just elected them.  They have a tough act to follow.  I stand in awe of the Iraqis.