Votes here and there

Why do Iraqis living in the US have to dip their fingers in the purple ink? And speaking of dipping fingers in purple ink, maybe it’s just me, but there is something sort of gross about seeing people holding up their purple fingers. Isn’t it kind of ironic to think about Iraqis doing this when Diebold is all over the news here with suspected crookedness? Does anyone expect the elections in Iraq to be fair and honest? Does anyone expect the elections here to be fair and honest? Wonder why they don’t use Diebold machines in Iraq?

Rep. Duncan Hunter was on C-Span this morning and the discussion got around to torture. Rep. Hunter said that Cheney and Goss wanted the option of harsher treatment for detainees. Hunter used the old “what if” scenario. What if there is a bomb in an airplane and a detainee knows where the bomb is? How would we get him to talk. Then he switched the story to what if there is a school bus full of kids and a detainee knows where the bomb is located. He didn’t mention the scenario in which the president is given a memo that says UBL determined to strike the US using airplanes. As I recall in a situation like that the president goes into full attack mode and applies torture to a pile of brush in Texas.

Don’t you find it appalling that we are even using the words “United States” and “torture” in the same sentence? If we aren’t careful, we will become what we have always abhorred. We will be the nightmare. We will become the enemy that we are now trying to defeat. We will have morphed into the ugly people from the ugly country.

So tomorrow the Iraqis will vote in Iraq. The country has been basically closed down all week. Some of the candidates have been murdered. We won’t know for some time who wins. We do know that we will see people walking around with purple fingers and we’ll be told how they put their lives in danger to go and vote for a free Iraq. Bush will claim that our dead soldiers were worth the sacrifice and we will continue to wonder if the next ballot we cast will be counted. Bush will also claim that our sacrifice of money was worth it in order to rebuild schools in Iraq. Meanwhile, the victims of this year’s hurricanes along the Gulf Coast will continue to wonder why our government shies away from rebuilding homes and schools for them. Perhaps it’s time for the people on the Gulf Coast to display one of their fingers to their government the next time they cast their votes.

(Editor's Note): While preparing this for post, the following related article arrived from another of our correspondents: "Truck With Allegedly Fake Ballots Detained"