The Sunni turnout in the Iraq election was about 40%. That's 1/4th better than the overall turnout predicted by liberal dunce Juan Cole, who said Iraqi vote turnout would be about 30% throughout the country. But the Sunni turnout is far lower than the estimated 72% overall voting rate (about 80% in non-Sunni areas). So the Sunnis are between stunned and miffed, and the Shi'ites don't care:
"We carried our father three hours to get him to the polls," said Muthana Jaffar al-Tamimi, 30, a [Shi'ite] grocery store clerk and art school graduate in Baghdad's middle-class Shi'ite neighborhood of Karada. The Sunni Arabs "could have made the process successful themselves," he said. "They could have gotten involved, but they didn't. We decided our destiny. They decided theirs."
He added, "It's their problem."
And their problem is coming to grips with what happened. Check out the contradictory thoughts one Sunni has to hold onto to keep his sanity:
Nabeal Younis, a Sunni Arab university professor and frequent critic of the U.S. and interim governments, said he still considered the elections illegal "because it happened under the will of the United States, not because of the will of the Iraqi people."
"But," he said, "I have to respect the will of other people. We have to wait and see what they're going to do after the election."
Get that? The "will of the people" is distinct from the "will of other people" and the former has still not manifested. Translation: Sunnis are THE PEOPLE, Shi'ites and Kurds are OTHER PEOPLE. And this comes from a University professor. Some ideas are so stupid, only an intellectual would adhere to them.
HT: the Cap'n.
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