I'm watching CNN shortly after midnight here, and on the tube is coverage of iraqi elections going on as i'm watching. There's a reporter trying to report on the status of one polling station and I'm having trouble understanding her because the voters lined up in the background are so exuberant, singing some kind of arabic song and clapping their hands, smiling broadly in what i have to believe is at least partly showing off for the camera. :) While I didn't support the war, and I still disapprove of the way its being conducted (especially the torture which is *still* going on), it is heartwarming to see these people so intent and determined to exercise their right to vote.

and yet, that report was followed by one about the steady sounds of mortar fire going off around the city. it is tragic and reprehensible that the goal of the insurgents in the area is to keep voters from voting at all. its becoming more and more clear to me that there is a fundamental problem in that region of the world, and a problem which is rapidly spreading to this country: fundamentalist, intolerant religious forces are at play, intent on quelling any sort of dissenting views. Just as it is vital for the future stability of the middle east--indeed, the world at large-- that the battle against the insurgents is won in iraq, we must also win the battle against the fundamentalists currently staging a constitutional coup here at home. And yes, when I speak of them, I am very definitely including these people.