Decius wrote:
] 3/4ths of the country. Would an election in the United States
] be credible if 1/4th of the geographic area (specifically the
] populous urban areas) were unable to participate in the
] election? Would your reasonable response be "So be it,
] nothing's perfect in life."

A similar argument could be made the other way around. If a terrorist group decided to try to disrupt elections in the U.S. by igniting one bomb in each of 20 different cities, would that then invalidate the entire election? If car bombs blew up in three different cities over the course of a month, would that then mean that the entire American government was invalid, and Congress should be disbanded?

I mean, there is a valid question here, which is, "At what point do individual acts of terrorism mean that an entire area is declared unsafe or unstable?" In my opinion, if 80% of Iraq's population *is* able to participate in an election, especially such a historic one in such a turbulent time, I think that's pretty good for a first try. But if others disagree and say that the number has to be a guaranteed 90% or 95% or higher, I can see their point.

As a loosely related side point, I had a thought-provoking conversation with a Canadian the other day, about voter turnouts, and how closely that Canada was following the U.S. election. It's an interesting (and probably true) statement, that if Canadians were allowed to vote in the U.S. election, that a higher percentage of Canadians (as a percentage of Canadian population) would probably vote in our elections, than Americans would!

To get back to the original subject though... If all we're talking about is the scheduling of the Iraqi elections, then yes, I agree it's worth re-examining the schedule to make sure it makes sense. But I don't think we should make any kneejerk decisions right now, or probably even over the next two weeks, because of our own election season.

RE: BarlowFriendz: Exit Strategies (updated)