Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

Don’t expect much coverage of the Afghani election from our friends at ABC, CBS, and NBC. You will have to look elsewhere for any competent coverage.

A 19-year-old Afghan refugee in Pakistan became the election’s first voter early Saturday, casting a ballot in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

Women’s Rights? White House Office of Women’s Outreach? Pale in comparison.

Of course, the hardliners (like some we have here) will do what they can. Some have already launched a few rockets.

“In 25 years a lot of rockets have landed. If another one lands because of the election, it’s no problem,” said Noor Uddin, a 49-year-old Kabul businessman, on Friday. “(Saturday) is a happy and historic day. That’s what is important.”

Wretchard has a good post on the election just completed in Australia. John Howard and his coalition (of the bribed and coerced?) have gained strength at the expense of Mark Latham’s Labor Party. In fact, Labor also lost ground to the Greens.

Tim has links to many other commentaries, and over 200 comments at his post.

Good on ya, Australia.

Rob pointed this out to me:

“This president,” say the Democrat ticket, “has squandered the goodwill of those nations who shared our pain on 9/11.”

Because they loved us when we were suffering.

She has a wonderful post of which this is only a small part.

I just had a long discussion with my liberal friend at work (his son is back at Bragg, and doing well) about the reasons we went into Iraq. I know, it’s a tired subject. But it is something he feels strongly enough about to make his support of Kerry very strong. We both know that discussion, not conversion, is the issue. Neither of us will change our mind about this election.

His bounce on this is the WMD reason for going to war, and the feeling that the war was economic. Had sanctions been lifted, Saddam was going to trade oil in Euros rather than dollars. Perhaps there is something to that.

But I raised the issue of Kosovo with him. In a way he hadn’t considered. Like most Democrats, the knee-jerk is “Clinton-basher!” But he knows me better, so he stifled it–but it took some inner strength to do so!

When Clinton decided we needed to intervene in Kosovo, the basis for that intervention was humanitarian. People were being murdered in genocidal fashion, and there were mass graves everywhere. We had no national interest in the doings there except in a humanitarian way. It was a European problem which the Europeans needed to handle. They couldn’t, and wouldn’t. Neither would the UN. So America did. I remember feeling there was a need to do something, but didn’t feel it was our place. When it became clear Europe was going to sit on their collective hands (or thumbs), I thought our involvement was justified. So did most Americans.

There were no mass graves. That doesn’t mean Clinton was wrong to use force.

When Bush decided to intervene in Iraq, the basis was to fight terrorism and prevent the development of WMD there. But something which is not talked about often enough is that the same reasons for invading Kosovo existed in Iraq. On top of that, we did have a national interest in doing so.

There were no WMDs in Iraq. That doesn’t mean Bush was wrong to use force.
There are mass graves in Iraq. That doesn’t mean Bush was wrong to use force.

Kosovo was not in our national interest, yet is was right for us to take action. Iraq was in our national interest, and had the identical situation as Kosovo–and more.

If we were right to go into Kosovo on humanitarian issues alone, were we not also right to go into Iraq for the same reason?

DRUDGE has this today.

Speaking at a French cultural center in Hanoi ahead of Friday’s opening of a summit of European and Asian leaders, Chirac said France was right to stand up for cultural and linguistic diversity.

I wonder if he spoke in French or Vietnamese.

Tomorrow there will be elections in Afghanistan. The first. This morning’s NPR report spoke of how this election has more legitimacy than the ones upcoming in Iraq because the UN is involved. I guess they think the UN is a legitimate organization.

The report also spoke of how contentious the election could be. Karzai has already had his life threatened, and has survived attacks. Thugs have trashed campaign organization offices, and some people are being threatened if they vote.

My goodness. Good thing we don’t have those problems here. (Thanks, Sarah) Our President and other candidates might need to have bodyguards. And we know nobody in this country would threaten a fellow citizen for their choice of candidate.

I’m just a Pollyanna.

***UPDATE***
Scott Norvell has a great piece at Tech Central Station.

Now that we have the official report on Saddam’s WMD programs, I think it is time for a little reflection. Probably not the kind you might expect, though.

I think we should all take a deep breath and consider this whole thing in a logical manner. I know that will be tough for some, but stick with me just for a few more seconds.

From the beginning we’ve had some sincere, and some not so sincere, people say we should simply let the UN inspectors continue their valuable work in ferreting out Saddam’s weapons programs. The first logical point to make is that the UN sanctions and the cease-fire agreement from 1991 did not state that he had to let us look for things. It said he must demonstrate compliance. He did not. In fact, he did what he could to make it difficult to determine whether he complied or not. Okay.

So, we invaded Iraq some 18 months ago and deposed him. Some still cried that we should have given the inspectors more time. Kerry and Edwards are still saying that. So is Kofi Annan.

My question to them is, and they’ve been asked this many times with no suitable answer, how long do we continue inspections? Six months. A year? Eighteen months?

Well, we are now at the eighteen month point. Consider that for a second.

In eighteen months of unhindered inspection we have not been able to find any WMD stockpiles. With his propensity for delay, and stooges within the UN teams, how long would it have taken for us to reach this stage of confidence had he still been in power? Two years? Three? Ten?

And in that time, knowing what we now know regarding the UN, Russia, and France, is there really any doubt that something terrible would have happened? And would that have led to even more drastic action than we have already taken?

I’m not precient. But I do have some understanding of people like Saddam. Once he felt comfortable in his little shell game with inspectors, and had reason to believe his infiltration of their ranks was solid, some very nasty chemicals would have made their way into the US.

Have no doubts about that.