Elections in Iraq, News for Your Scholars and Mine

Elections in Iraq- They seem to be going outstandingly well.
Gateway Pundit: "From the BBC(?)..."This is stability, at last"I beleive that headline has more shock value than a bomb in Baghdad! " Gateway has great pictures and links to other stories. I have not checked out all the links, so please preview for your children.

Captain Ed explains is also blogging on the high turnout. According to CNN's Christine Amanpour:

"But what really surprised me was the turnout in the Sunni population. We went to
a place called Dura in southern Baghdad. It's quite a violent place, it's quite
a poor place, it's mostly Sunni, but the turnout was high there. They said that
they had made a mistake, basically, by sitting out the last election. They
wanted their voice heard, they wanted to be counted, and so they're going to the
polls today. ... The one thing most people have said is that they don't want a
religious state here or a religious government."

Captain Ed tells us that this is in part because of a successfully negotiated truce:

Part of the reason for the high turnout and relatively low violence over
the past few days appears to be secret
negotiations between the American military command and some native insurgent
groups for a cease-fire, according to the Washington Times. The truce got
approval from the highest ranks of the US command in Iraq and looks to have been
mostly successful, although the policy did not have unanimous support among the
command officers:
After months of painstaking dialogue, U.S. officials have
persuaded most of the main insurgent groups to cease violence for today's
election and its immediate aftermath, U.S. officials said yesterday. In return,
the U.S. military agreed, despite severe internal disagreements, to halt
"offensive operations" during the period, U.S. Embassy officials said on the
condition of anonymity. The decision to negotiate, taken by the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, met with resistance from several of his fellow officers. It was then decided to make no public statement, but simply to act on the new orders in secret.
U.S. forces are thought to be fighting dozens of different insurgent groups, making it difficult to measure the effort's success. Moreover, the time frame for the agreement, which also included several days prior to the vote, is not clear. Nevertheless, the agreement has generally held up, despite some notable exceptions, such as Tuesday's killing of a leading Sunni politician in Ramadi. On the same day, U.S. forces raided the city.

Captain Ed hopes "the lack of widespread violence may indicate that Zarqawi's ability to conduct such operations has been severely curtailed. Casey may have chosen wisely here -- and the vote might finally convince the Sunni to either lay down their weapons or to join the new Iraqi security forces and serve the newly elected democratic republic, under the civilian command of the National Assembly."

Michelle Malkin also has a list of links about the elections. I've not checked these all out, either, and caution is always recommended before you let your youn'uns loose on the internet world. She points out that it is two years ago this week that Saddam Hussein was captured in his spider-hole.

An Average Iraqi has a post with pictures of voters in his neighborhood, and his grandfather with his purple finger.