OpinionJournal - Extra: "It's not just the terrorists who, according to His Eminence, are creating problems for Iraq: Elections in January 'will be a starting point for a new Iraq,' he says. Yet 'Western newspapers and broadcasters are simply peddling propaganda and misinformation. . . . Iraqis are happy to be having elections and are looking forward to them because they will be useful for national unity. . . . Perhaps not everything will go exactly to plan, but, with time, things will improve. Finally Iraqis will be given the chance to choose. Why is there so much noise and debate coming out from the West when before, under Saddam, there were no free elections, but no one said a thing?' "
--------------
The Archbishop of Kirkuk gives a quite different picture of Iraq on the eve of elections. But of course, he is a Christian in Iraq, supported by the Wall Street Journal and other bastions of captalism. What would he know about democracy that the Oil for Food program, the UN, and the Germans and French don't know? They had no financial interests to support Saddam or that would make them look with nostalgia on the good old days and hope for the failure of the elections on Sunday, did they? When have the French or Germans ever sought narrow self-interest? Ask the New Republic which continues to spread gloom and doom. But of course, there is little joy is liberalism nowadays. The old liberalism of FDR, HST, and JFK has been dead a long time, and those who are left [no pun intended] are as sour as a green persimmon. Anything good that happens or could happen is a refutation of their world view, which can be summarized, "Everything stinks."