As Iraqis go to the polls:

There's a paradox about war: along with all the terrible things it is, it's a kind of intimacy -- an almost Biblical knowing. A nation or an individual may go to war in a state of ignorance and prejudice, but will come out of it forever changed and married, having swapped a great deal of cultural DNA....Now, Iraq. No longer far away and alien, the Iraqis have become strangely dear to us. By blundering into their country, liberating and killing them, violating their homes and rebuilding their schools, we have haltingly come to know their intelligence and deep emotion, their amazing courage, their hospitality and pride. Now we are holding our breath as they risk their lives to vote, to grasp the bloody gift we've given them and send us packing. .

[via AmbivaBlog]