The Terrorists Have Lost

With the defeat of Axis forces at Battle of El Alamein (1942), Winston Churchill remarked, "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

Today's event in Iraq was a huge victory in the War on Terror. The Iraqi people have voted in large numbers in their first democratic election in 50 years--even CNN reports a 72% turnout. The apparent success of the Iraqi elections leaves the Mainstream Media seaching for a negative angle. Leave it to Reuters to highlight them:

Insurgents unleashed a wave of bloody attacks on Iraq's historic election Sunday, killing at least 22 people and wounding dozens in suicide bombings and mortar strikes at polling stations across the country.

Militants determined to wreck Iraq's first multi-party elections in half a century struck mainly in Baghdad, carrying out nine suicide attacks in rapid succession.

A low Sunni turnout could undermine the credibility of Iraq's first election since Saddam Hussein was toppled in a U.S.-led invasion in April 2003.

The election is a cornerstone of President Bush's plans in Iraq. But many fear that instead of quelling the anti-American insurgency, the poll could foment sectarian strife, delaying any withdrawal of U.S.-led forces.

Despite draconian security measures imposed by Iraq's U.S.-backed interim government, the militants launched a sustained assault aimed at frightening people away from voting.

The expected left-wing harping over a "low Sunni turnout" can only mean that Reuters could find nothing else amiss about the election. And nine suicide bombers in a nation of 25 million people and over 5,000 polling places can hardly be termed as a "sustained assault". In fact, if this is all the violence that the terrorists could muster on Election Day in Iraq, then the terrorists are clearly losing.

We shouldn't be surprised to see the Iraqi elections downplayed in the Mainstream Media. We heard almost nothing from them about the huge success and victory over tyranny symbolized by the Afghani elections in 2004. Afghanistan had their first election in 5,000 years (that's five thousand), and the media could only harp about disputes between the presidental candidates.

Mark my words, this really is the end of the beginning for Islamic Terrorism.