Successful Election...

Thanks to the bravery of the Iraqi people and the bravery of the United States soldiers, Iraq's election went relatively well. The reason I say relatively is the fact that over 40 people lost their life on that day, trying to create a new day for Iraq. I hate saying things like this was a success when there was a loss of human life, but compared to what many had been predicting, things went smoothly. I've heard turnout percentages from 72% (Fox News), to 54% (CBS News). Either way the turnout was high in many areas and the Iraqi people and the US military need to be applauded for the outstanding job they both did. The job for the US is far from over, but this is the first step in getting these brave men and women home. My immediate thoughts after hearing about the relatively low violence is that it appears there are a few pockets of resistance left, but nowhere near what the far left media has been reporting. A couple weeks back for example, one liberal media outlet was reporting that there was a comparable amount of insurgents to the number of troops we had over there. That has now been proven to be false. If that was a true report, there would have been much, much, much more violence and carnage. The left really needs to watch itself with some of their "stretch' reporting. I know we all disapprove of many things the President has done through out his presidency, but we lefties need to be much more careful about some of the statistics we're throwing around. I'm starting to see a lot of the same stretching of the truth that we've been accusing the Hannitys of the world of doing for years. We need to give credit where credit is due and while I will never think that Iraq was the proper place to invade in this "war on terror", the administration does deserve some praise for delivering a (again relatively) violence free election for the Iraqi people. I hope soon the President and the Republicans will start talking with the Democrats on an exit strategy. We don't need a timeline, just an outline of what would be considered the proper time to get most troops home. Will it be at the end of the year when the Iraqi govt. has some semblance of orderand a constitution? Will it be once the Iraqi security force is properly trained and doesn't run at the first hint of trouble? These are the questions I pray our politicians on both sides of the aisle can create some consensus on.