Lest we forget

Ali posted about the upcoming elections today. Here in America we take elections for granted. We've had so many of them that it's simply part of the culture and nothing special. But it's very special to Ali and his friends.

We've been waiting for the moment when we can decide our future all our lives and now it's happening and I can't tell you how excited that makes me and all freedom loving Iraqis. I feel like after voting I would not care what would happen to me. I would say my word, voice my will loud and clear in public for the first time in my life and that means almost everything to me. The terrorist can kill me and many of the Iraqis who are going to vote, but we would die proud. We will regain our self esteem and our pride that Saddam and his thugs took away by humiliating us, torturing and killing our friends and beloved ones infront of our eyes and then spitting in our faces after that, and all we could do was what we had to do to avoid more death and torture, we could only praise them after each murder and each crime. It made us hate ourselves and the whole world, lose our trust in everyone and just keep living a life that was worse than death but one that we still couldn't sacrifice for a good cause fearing for our families fate after our death.

This horror, fear, hate and loss of trus is gone now but not entirely. We still feel it and they still remind us with it every day with every beheading and every murder they commit against those who actively try to change things in Iraq for the better. We feel it with various degrees, and for some of us it's turned into an additional motive to fight these thugs and to refuse a life like that even if the only other option is death. I don't want to live like that again, NEVER, and for that reason I'm going to vote and for the same reason I know that so many Iraqis are going to vote and let the terrorists show us the best they can do, as it won't stop us.

Our forefathers knew this same fear and felt the same determination.

Perhaps the example of Iraqis like Ali will inspire a renewal of patriotism in Americans.