Iraqi Vote -- A Counter Reflection

This from AlterNet this morning begins with the following:

United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting. According to reports from Saigon, 83 percent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong. A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam.– "U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote," The New York Times, Sept. 4, 1967

and ends with this:

Lyndon Johnson was excited about voter turnout in Vietnam in September 1967. Eight years, three presidents and millions of dead people later, that excitement proved to have been wretchedly illusory. There is no reason, no reason whatsoever, to believe that the Iraq election we witnessed this weekend will bring anything other than death and violence to the people of that nation and our soldiers who move among them. History repeats itself only when we are stupid enough to miss the lessons learned in past failures. The wheel is coming around again.

What's in between -- which comes from William Rivers Pitt of TruthOut.Org -- is informative and provides a counter to the ecstasy about the vote which, I'm sure, Dubya -- and the media -- will revel in during tonight's State of the Union.