THE GOOD NEWS FROM IRAQ

Follow the link to Arthur Chrenkoff's roundup of the good news coming from Iraq. Just as the mainstream media only tells you about the one plane that crashed rather than the 1,000 planes that landed safely, so too they tell you only about the violence and mayhem in Iraq, rather than any of the good work being done. Chrenkoff's expansive list includes items like...

With just over a month to go, preparations for election day are accelerating: "At the offices of Iraq's election commission, workers scurry to field phone calls, greet sheiks and politicians, and prepare for the country's nationwide election Jan. 30. The pace borders on frenetic," says one report:

Registration of voters is under way. The registry is based on records of Iraqis who receive monthly food rations under a program that began in the early 1990s, when the nation was under U.N. sanctions. Today, rich and poor Iraqis alike still receive rations. "Nobody could tell lies to Saddam. So it was a correct record. Whoever lied was killed," said [Farid] Ayar, [the electoral commission spokesman]. Registration forms are delivered to citizens through food-ration agents linked to 542 distribution centers across the nation of 22 million to 27 million people.

While the totalitarian obsession with recordkeeping has made it easy to register votes within Iraq, the International Migration Organization will be trying to ensure through its Out-of-Country--Voting for Iraq program that Iraqis living in 14 foreign countries can also register over a one-week period a fortnight prior to the voting. As part of the overseas vote effort, Jordanian authorities have announced they will set up a center to count ballots from the estimated 100,000 Iraqis residing in the country.

It will take a while, but scroll down through Chrenkoff's entire list. It is truly amazing what is being attempted in Iraq. If it succeeds, it will truly be an historic event.