Iraq Votes!

The polls opened in the morning to an eerie quiet all over Iraq, as vehicles had been banned from the streets for the day, and people stayed home, waiting and watching to see if the insurgents would be able to thwart the massive security measures and carry out their threats of bloodshed and mayhem. But over most of the country the quiet persisted, and slowly but surely Iraqi citizens began to trickle towards the polling stations.

Dressed in their best clothes, entire families with veiled women and broods of children began to fill the streets. Lines began to form, sometimes blocks long, and in many places there was an air of celebration as neighbours shared food and proudly displayed their ink stained fingers, from being fingerprinted at the polling station. It was the first free vote in Iraq in 50 years, and over eight million Iraqis risked their lives to make it a success.

The total voter turnout was estimated between 60 and 70 percent, much higher than anticipated. Over 90% of the Shi'ite Muslim majority voted. The northern Kurds also showed up in large numbers. The minority Sunnis, who had ruled the country for the last fifty years, came out in predictably small numbers, but at least they came out! Some Sunni polling stations didn't even bother to open, but in other areas Sunnis displayed remarkable bravery. In the infamous insurgent stronghold of Falluja, an amazing 8,000 of the 20,000 Sunni residents braved militant threats to cast their vote. Even in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, 400 courageous souls ventured out to vote where just the previous day, masked gunman were in the streets shooting AK47's into the air and shouting that they were going to kill anyone who tried to vote.

The insurgents were not entirely quiet. There were several attacks and explosions throughout the country - eight in Baghdad alone - that killed 44 people and injured scores of others, but it was not the blood bath the insurgents had threatened. Still, just as in the recent Afghanistan elections, people literally risked injury and death to try and make their country a better place, putting to shame all the westerners too apathetic and lazy to get up off the couch at election time.

On voting day in Iraq, Ahmed, his wife Fatima, and their two daughters went to vote at their local polling station. Their son, Amar, did not go with them, because he had no idea what was going on. He was born with Down's Syndrome, what Iraqis call a Mongoli. He was nineteen, with the intelligence of a four year old.

After voting, Ahmed and his family joined friends and extended family to celebrate the momentous day. During the festivities an explosion was heard in the distance, momentarily interrupting the party. Used to hearing explosions, they were not about to let anything dampen their spirits, so the dancing and singing soon continued, until someone rushed in saying it had been a Mongoli that had blown himself up.

Ahmed and his wife hurried to the scene, and found their son's head lying in a pool of blood on the street. Pieces of Amar's torn flesh were strewn everywhere, part of his torso showing the remnant of a bomb vest attached to it. Witnesses say he was pushed out of a car near a polling station in the Baghdad suburb of Al-Askan. Looking scared and confused, he began walking toward the entrance, but about halfway there he stopped, and began to walk back to the car. That's when his abducters pushed the button.

Across town, at a school that was being used as a polling station in the Al-Hurriyah district of Baghdad, an Iraqi by the name of A'adel Nasir saw a person in line about to detonate a vest full of explosives. Instead of running for his life, he threw the suicide bomber to the ground and fell on top of him, dying instantly as the vest exploded beneath him, and saving the lives of several fellow voters. The school was renamed on Wednesday by the Iraqi Minister of Education. It is now the A'adel Nasir school.

It seems that when insurgents tried to attack a group of citizens in Al-Mudhiryiah, a small town in the "Sunni Triangle", because they had voted in the election - the voters fought back! They managed to kill five of their attackers, and wound eight, as well as burning their cars. Three of the brave citizens were wounded.

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