On Jan. 30, 2009, 51 percent of Iraqis voted peacefully for their equivalent of state legislators. There was no sectarian violence at the polling places, and there was even a drift away from religious, sectarian voting towards secular, patriotism-based voting. Why aren’t we jumping up and down excitedly about this? Why isn’t the news ecstatic that we actually accomplished something in Iraq?

While the tanking economy certainly takes up a lot of news time, somebody in America should be recognizing that the Iraqi democracy is showing the first signs of functioning normally. The Iraqi Turkmen Human Rights Research Foundation, which produced the report cited above, can give you some good news. With all the bad economic news we’re privy to right now, good news should be welcomed.

In fact, the worst problems that came out of the elections were threats that our military consider purely hot air. Take this in contrast with the 2005 elections, where 44 people died and hundreds of attacks were reported. Black Tuesday 2008 was a more dangerous event than the most recent Iraqi elections. That’s not the only astounding thing happening in Iraq.

On Feb. 23, Army Maj. Gen. David Perkins reported not a single civilian was targeted in an attack on Feb. 20. There was no fighting anywhere in Iraq that Americans had to get involved in. Considering the tyranny Iraq came from and the subsequent civil war they narrowly avoided, a day without fighting should have been big-time news. It wasn’t. Especially since this was the war that spawned the “Endless War” bumper stickers, I think more people should know that we are in fact actually ending the war. Violence is down dramatically, elections are running smoothly and the Iraqi people are patrolling themselves.

The Iraqi security forces are up to 618,000. They’re not ineffective, either. Iraqis planned the security for the elections that went smoothly. They’re cracking down on corruption and abuse of power in their ranks, too. On Feb. 24, it was announced the Iraqis had arrested 11 Shi’ite policemen who killed Sunnis during the sectarian strife.

This is incredibly good news. It is proof that they’re not going to let the ruling party (currently Shi’ites) dominate the minority party with violence and abuse. We may never know exactly why we invaded Iraq, but when President Obama calls all the troops out, they will leave behind a stable, democratic country. Whether the Iraqis will be able to hold it together when we’re gone is unknown, but with this next year and a half or so of stable freedom I’d guess that they’ll get used to it, and if they like it, they’ll work to preserve it.

I didn’t think it could happen, honestly. I didn’t think people could be taught democracy by an outside power and that the war was a lesson in futility. But regardless of all the American public hostility and America’s messy handling of the Iraq war, Baghdad is not under a tyranny any longer, and Basra is under a stable government.

We should be excited about this. As a nation, we accomplished something meaningful. We brought freedom, whether the world credits us or not. Saddam Hussein might still be in power if George Bush didn’t ride in, guns ‘ablazin, and topple a dictator. Regardless of whether you liked the war or not, the outcome so far has been this: a stable democracy, and yet we don’t see this on the news or in the papers. This is wrong.

-Stephen Carradini is a professional writing senior.