Request for Iraqi and Afghan Election Monitors in the 2006 United States Midterm Elections

Dear Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan,

Your two nations have gone radical transitions. In the period of less than 5 years, you have thrown off the shackles of tyranny and joined the free world. Congratulations. You are beacons of freedom in the Middle East and around the world.

Here is your chance to bring democracy to another nation. There is a nation that has had controversial elections where the vote has been disputed and the candidate who received a minority of the vote got office. There is a country that has been criticized by the UN (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4722534.stm), Amnesty International (http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR510632005), and the Red Cross (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3179858.stm) of human rights violations. There is a country where its leader regards the highest law in the land as "just a goddamn piece of paper" (http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml). This country is the United States.

Yes, us Americans have lived in the freest of the free for over 200 years. We have pushed the cause of democracy and liberal ideas all over this world. Now, we've gotten sloppy. There have been a lot of thing we have allowed to slide. For example, liberalism, the ideology created by great thinkers like Aristotle, Voltaire, and Thomas Jefferson as the basis of liberty as we know it, is now considered evil. People who call themselves liberals are branded as Nazis and Stalinists (http://mediamatters.org/items/200512020005, http://mediamatters.org/items/200501210003). When the media tries to exercise it's right to free speech (a liberal ideal), it is denounced by the US's leaders as "[doing] great harm." (http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/ny-times-the-paper-republicans-like-to-accuse-of-aiding-the-enemy/2006/06/30/1151174396050.html). Combining this with the aforementioned accusations of human rights abuse, we really need a change.

The question, of course, is can we change? Normally, we would have elections. However, over the last couple of years, there have been flaws in our election system. In our last Presidential Election of 2004, there were accusations of voter fraud in Ohio and elsewhere (http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen). In the 2002 midterm elections, there are accusations Senator Max Cleland had the election stolen from him (http://www.alternet.org/story/16474/). Of course, this is nothing compared to the 2000 election. This election was filled with controversy and, in the end, the man with the most popular votes lost (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election\%2C_2000#Controversy_in_Florida).

With much voting controversy in our nation, we the undersigned call upon President Karzai and Prime Minister Maliki to send in election monitors to make sure our 2006 Midterm elections go smoothly. Since Iraq is a beacon of democracy across the Middle East (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1555184,00.html) and Afghanistan is a beacon of hope in a troubled region of the world (http://www.voanews.com/uspolicy/archive/2005-01/a-2005-01-10-3-1.cfm), we ask you not to be stingy with your light but to share it with a nation in need of some good old-fashioned democratic beacontry (Im sure the President said it somewhere or will say it in the near future). If necessary, we may require peacekeepers from your nations to make sure democracy can be enforced. After all, Iraqi Security forces have grown, according to the President (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051130.html) and Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry has stated we have made good progress in creating Afghan security forces (http://www.defenselink.mil/news/May2006/20060510_5084.html). By these statements, there is little reason to doubt you could help us if need be.

You are now democracies. As democracies, it is your duty to help a brotha democracy out. Will you help us, pretty please?