Lieutenant-Colonel Mowatassam Hachem al-Jebouri is determined to vote despite living in a guerrilla-infested district of Baghdad. He has devised a plan to do so. The former Iraqi Air Force fighter pilot has identified ten like-minded families from his neighbourhood. The men of those households will set off for their local polling station early in the morning, hoping that the terrorists will be deterred by their numbers. If they return unscathed, if they deem the streets and polling station safe, they will send their wives in the afternoon. Colonel al-Jebouri, 41, the father of two young girls, refuses to be cowed by the insurgents and their threats to kill those who vote. Having suffered 18 months of fear and bloodshed, he insists on his right to participate in Iraq's first free election in half a century. "This is a milestone which will lay the foundations for building a new future in Iraq," he told The Times. snip
Brigadier-General Erv Lessel, the chief US military spokesman in Iraq, predicted a surge of violence tomorrow, with some officials saying that the insurgents would probably attack early "to create the image and perception that it's unsafe to go out". But Colonel al-Jebouri was undaunted. He drew inspiration for his plan from a television advertisement produced by the Iraqi Government that shows an elderly man confronted by a group of masked and menacing youths in an alley.
This ad was incredible!! If you haven't seen it, let me know and I'll send link
The old man refused to retreat and is slowly joined by more and more fellow citizens until, as a group, they move forward and the thugs disperse. The message is simple: together ordinary Iraqis are stronger than the extremists. "We held a meeting. We decided to go all together, taking the idea from the advert," the colonel said. The ten men, Sunnis and Shias, went yesterday morning to check out the polling station in Ghazaliya, a violent area on the western highway towards Fallujah where gunmen sometimes set up checkpoints to intimidate the population. Like the rest of the capital's polling centres, it had become a veritable Fort Knox, with razor wire and concrete barriers blocking the roads to thwart suicide car bombers. Police frisked everyone going in. The mere act of casting their ballots could cost this group their lives, but Colonel al-Jebouri says that fear is not an election issue. "Voting is just another risk in Iraq," he said. "But this one is worth is taking."
The new Iraqi election counting game: how many BUT's will an article on the election contain? Lileks calls them the Damned Buts. Many we can have a Rantburg award for the article or TV commentator with the most Damned Buts!