Purple fingers.... another photo op

[Windy]

I thought in the first election in Iraq, the citizens actually marked ballots with inked fingertips and that was why they have purple fingers. I was watching CNN this morning and they showed some of the early balloting. It appears that now, the Iraqis are made to dip their fingers in ink before they can put their ballot in the box!!! Shameful!

Anyone else notice this?

[BlueEyedSon]

1. its to prevent repeat voting, not to mark the ballot

[TallahasseeGrannie]

2. They dip their fingers in ink

so they can't vote twice. Not a bad idea, actually.

[asthmaticeog]

3. Why is it shameful? n/t

[lectrobyte]

4. Let Colonel Kurtz explain it

I've seen the horror. Horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that, but you have no right to judge me . It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face, and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and mortal terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies.

I remember when I was with Special Forces--it seems a thousand centuries ago--we went into a city to supervise elections. The people... so happy to be voting... We left the city after the polls had closed, and this old man came running after us, and he was crying. He couldn't speak. We went there, and they had come and hacked off every purple finger. There they were in a pile--a pile of purple fingers. And I remember...I...I...I cried, I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out, I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it, I never want to forget. And then I realized--like I was shot...like I was shot with a diamond...a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought, "My God, the genius of that, the genius, the will to do that." Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they could stand that--these were not monsters, these were men, trained cadres, these men who fought with their hearts, who have families, who have children, who are filled with love--that they had this strength, the strength to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men, then our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral and at the same time were able to utilize their primordial i nstincts to kill without feeling, without passion, without judgment--without judgment. Because it's judgment that defeats us.