Blue Finger Revolution Under Way

Voting under way in Iraq at this time. Multiple developments. Thousands upon thousands of Iraqi citizens are holding up a blue finger in defiance.

A blue finger as a badge of HONOR.

As show of solidarity with the Iraqi people, and out of respect for members of the US and coalition forces who have paid the highest price possible for these elections, my seven year old son and I colored one of our fingers blue.

FoxNews, MSNBC and even CNN reporting good turnout, in spite of explosions in different areas. C Amanpour is, of course, surprised by the turnout.

Many Iraq Blogs here, including the one and only IraqTheModel . Hat tip to RealClear Politics. Roger L Simon and Iraq Elections newswire are liveblogging the election, Cigars In the Sand has a photoBLOG of the election going, many pics of Proud Iraqis holding up their blue stained fingers; hat tip to the "Blogfather" for that one. Wretchard over at the Belmont Club has some good posts up as well. Powerline has a good list of sites up as well. Opaque Lucidity is on this one too, the blogs are all over this.

Earlier yesterday Fox News reports, two were killed in the "Green-Zone". One a Defense department contractor, the other a US Naval Officer.

The amazing part of this story is how US was able to track missile on radar, bring UAV to bear at the coordinates of the missiles origin, and begin tracking the Islamo-Fascists running from the launch site only to be tracked by the UAV. US troops responded and now these jerks are in custody. They all responded positive to a field test for rocket fuel residue, and are being interrogated at this hour. They ran to two seperate houses according to the Fox report, and were apprehended quickly. This all happened in real time and ought to serve as a powerful warning to those who would attempt the same thing.

This is a stunning technological feat as the rocket was fired from some 15 klicks away. Can you imagine the looks on their faces when our boys kicked the door in only minutes after they closed it, probably thinking they had gotten away with it. I would love to see a picture of that look.

With over 5000 polling places in Iraq; indeed, around the world it will be impossible to guarantee safety at each one, but I am convinced the scent of Liberty burns more pungently in the nostrils of the Iraqi citizen, than the smoke of the terrorists bombs.

Other reports are of car bombs exploding at checkpoints, short of the actual polling location. If correct this is an illustration that security precautions are working as intended.

Iyad Allawi is casting his vote now.

Susan Estrich is beefing to Geraldo on Fox that "it's great that the Iraqi people are getting to vote BUT (there is always that BUT with Democrats who are about to dump on a good thing) establishing democracy is not why we went to Iraq; we went to Iraq for WMD BLAH, BLAh...free health care....blab, blah...Halliburton...blah BLAH Blah..in a fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Kahn...bla blah, BLAH "

Maybe Susan Estrich wasn't paying attention, but I was. And I remember Bush-Cheney-Powell-Rice-Rumsfeld clearly articulating just such an event as we are seeing today.

They were right then, and they are right today (see ColdFury link here) more than ever. -SpinDaddy

Update 30JAN05 0823hrs: MSNBC, and FoxNews are reporting turnouts in the 70-90% in some areas. This is astounding. Of course we can count on MSM punditry to dismiss it as a failure and ignore it the way they have in the Afghan elections.

This also points up how Americans take their liberty for granted. We do good to get a 50% turnout, and nobody is shooting at us when we vote. Americans have the audacity to complain about long lines and a little rain. -SpinDaddy

Update 30JAN05 0902hrs: Polls in Iraq are closing now after an historic day. This is a huge victory for Bushes Middle East policy. Afghan elections. Palestinian elections. Iraqi elections all in the books now.

A huge sea change is underway in the Middle East, and only the seriously myopic could miss it. Unfortunately too many of the myopic populate the MSM. Too bad.

The good news is the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. generally aren't subjected to the indoctriantion of the MSM. Of course they do have al Jazeera, but they have lived history, now they know better than what they see on TV. -SpinDaddy