"We are defeating the terrorists as we are coming here," Saad said, pointing his index finger into the air. "We want to be and live like all people, like all human beings."...
A Kurdish woman wearing a black scarf said simply, "This is the happiest day of my life."...
"This is the greatest day in the history of this country," Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie told CNN.
He said voters had defied loyalists of Saddam Hussein and terrorist leaders Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden. "I think we have sustained a very big blow on them -- at least psychologically -- today," Al-Rubaie said.
Throughout Iraq, voters' fingers were marked with ink to prevent them from voting more than once.
At a voting center in Baghdad, one man dipped his son's finger in ink.
"This is our badge of pride," he said....
Voters nationwide said they were coming to defy the insurgency, to cast ballots for their nation's future and to take part in the first free elections of their lifetime. Many brought their entire families, and the general mood was one of celebration.
A sign on a wall in Baghdad read: "Don't live in fear."
This reminds me of the way Americans responded after 9/11, going back to doing the things that were part of our usual way of life on the theory that otherwise the terrorists would have won. Many of the things we did in those days, like getting on a plane again, were not all that risky, but we did need to conquer the fear the terrorists meant to enfeeble us with. Following the same sound logic, the Iraqi voters faced much more imminent threats yesterday. What a great accomplishment for the people of Iraq! They acted for their own benefit, but it took a lot of courage. They have our deep admiration.
UPDATE: I wrote about Al-Rubaie a while back, here.
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