2008 Woodie Awards
Point-counterpoint: Iraq's constitutional referendum
The Cause of Freedom
Horne, Jon
Issue date: 10/28/05 Section: Opinions & Editorials
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Tuesday, about 2 1/2 years after U.S. and Iraqi forces embarked on a campaign to depose Saddam Hussein, Iraq's constitutional referendum was approved by a staggering 79 percent of voters. To put this in perspective, 11 years and one failed governing document after the Declaration of Independence, fewer than 71 percent of the delegates to the constitutional convention ratified our Constitution. Additionally, and perhaps more astoundingly, there was a 63 percent turnout in Iraq and the vote was ratified as free and fair by the United Nations, of all bodies!
The most momentous element of this vote is that the citizens of Iraq, not some dictator, the U.S., or the U.N., are now the ones making the decisions that govern their own lives - they're realizing the fundamental human right to freedom and self determination. They choose where they're going, and 79 percent of Iraqis endorsed the balance between freedom and civil and religious order that this constitution prescribes.
Predictably, the headlines Tuesday were split between this victory and the news that 2,000 U.S. soldiers have now been killed in the last 2 1/2 years there. And this tragic milestone does give one cause to wonder if this fight is worth it.
Recently I heard an American soldier talk about an Iraqi who enlisted in his country's military. A group of local Saddam loyalists had gotten wind of the man's enlistment, and to punish him, they tossed a doll stuffed with explosives into the man's yard. The man's daughter, playing in that yard, picked up the doll, to then have it explode in her arms, permanently disfiguring her. In the face of this twisted intimidation, over the last 14 months the number of Iraqi army battalions has increased from five to 91.
And people try to tell us freedom is lost on the Iraqis.
After the battle of Antietam in our Civil War, with reports of 23,000 U.S. deaths in one day and anticipating a war that would ultimately cost us more than 600,000 lives, President Lincoln had to ask himself whether the cause of freedom and self-determination is worth it.
With courage and certainty Lincoln answered yes. The cause of freedom and self-determination is bigger than any one of us. And when the smoke clears in Iraq, the Iraqi people, the Middle East, and, indeed, the world will be a profoundly better place for the sacrifices that are being made today, and the freedom and liberty we're beginning to reap now.
The most momentous element of this vote is that the citizens of Iraq, not some dictator, the U.S., or the U.N., are now the ones making the decisions that govern their own lives - they're realizing the fundamental human right to freedom and self determination. They choose where they're going, and 79 percent of Iraqis endorsed the balance between freedom and civil and religious order that this constitution prescribes.
Predictably, the headlines Tuesday were split between this victory and the news that 2,000 U.S. soldiers have now been killed in the last 2 1/2 years there. And this tragic milestone does give one cause to wonder if this fight is worth it.
Recently I heard an American soldier talk about an Iraqi who enlisted in his country's military. A group of local Saddam loyalists had gotten wind of the man's enlistment, and to punish him, they tossed a doll stuffed with explosives into the man's yard. The man's daughter, playing in that yard, picked up the doll, to then have it explode in her arms, permanently disfiguring her. In the face of this twisted intimidation, over the last 14 months the number of Iraqi army battalions has increased from five to 91.
And people try to tell us freedom is lost on the Iraqis.
After the battle of Antietam in our Civil War, with reports of 23,000 U.S. deaths in one day and anticipating a war that would ultimately cost us more than 600,000 lives, President Lincoln had to ask himself whether the cause of freedom and self-determination is worth it.
With courage and certainty Lincoln answered yes. The cause of freedom and self-determination is bigger than any one of us. And when the smoke clears in Iraq, the Iraqi people, the Middle East, and, indeed, the world will be a profoundly better place for the sacrifices that are being made today, and the freedom and liberty we're beginning to reap now.