The scenes from the Iraqi election are fascinating.  This is a truly historic day.  On the heels of the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the streets of Iraq are filled with people liberated from Saddam Hussein’s death camps.  Millions of people, freed from the brutal rule of a dictator, up to 70% of all Iraqis are voting!  They are dancing and singing, celebrating their new freedom. 

Some Americans may have trouble comprehending the Iraqis’ enthusiasm.  We take our democratic process so for granted that Democrats have been complaining for four years that minorities were so intimidated by seeing a police car parked a block away from a polling center in Florida that they could not vote in the 2000 election. Over the past 24 hours, entire Iraqi families stood in long lines to vote, braving suicide bombers and sniper fire.  They were told by the terrorists that if they voted, they would be killed.  Under threat of death, they stood for freedom.  Notice that the “Human Shields” and war protestors were not there to shield civilians from suicide bombers – as always, it is the American soldier who sacrifices his life for the freedom and safety of others.

The Iraqi example puts our Democrats to shame.

It took a Republican president, and a military that votes in excess of 75% Republican to bring democracy to Iraq.  Where were the Democrats?  They were shouting “not in our name.”  Rest assured Democrats, the liberation of Iraq (and its transition to democracy) was not done in your name.  The world will long remember that if Democrats had their way, Saddam Hussein’s death camps and torture chambers would still be in operation.  While the Democrats where whining about “reaching out to the world community,” American “cowboys” and a coalition of the willing got the job done. 

While Iraqis prepared to vote, Sen. Kennedy said:

The war in Iraq has become a war against the American occupation. . . . The U.S. military presence has become part of the problem, not part of the solution. . . .

No, Sen. Kennedy, only perhaps 200,000 people in Iraq oppose our efforts.  Over 8 million Iraqis went to the polls – those 8 million Iraqis are grateful to America.  Most of them see our soldiers as liberators.  The new Iraq is a democratic nation of free peoples, less likely to sponsor terrorism against the United States than the Hussein regime.  The age of fear and oppression is over in Iraq, no thanks to Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and the rest of the ant-war Democrats.

As President Bush said, “War never solved anything, except for ending slavery, fascism, Nazism and communism,” and the brutal, Stalinist rule of Saddam Hussein.  Soon, we may be able to add to that list of evils that were overcome, the evil of terrorism.  State sponsors of terrorism are being transformed into pro-western democracies by a Republican President and brave Americans who are willing to fight for the freedom and safety of others.  The Democrats, the appeasers, the protestors, the French, the isolationists and the UN all preferred inaction, and endless debate, to going to war.  In the words of George Orwell, “To abjure violence is a luxury which a delicate few enjoy only because others stand ready to do violence in their behalf.”

Judson Cox is a political columnist from the mountains of North Carolina. He is quickly gaining recognition as one of the most popular and influential voices of his generation. Judson Cox is President of the Foundation for Conservative American Values and Editor In Chief of the North Carolina Conservative (soon to be North Carolina’s largest circulation newspaper).