WHAT WE'RE FIGHTING FOR . . .

I can say what I want to say about the war in Iraq. Oh, I'm sorry, most media outlets are now calling it a "conflict." I can criticize all I want and call Shrub all the names I want. I can lament the foreign military presence in Iraq and the bombed out skeletons of what used to homes for Iraqi citizens. I can say "yes, I'm glad Saddam Hussein is gone, BUT ..." and lift my nose in disdain for what I largely have considered a colossal waste of money and human life. I can even let my most pessimistic self come forth and scoff at the possiblity of a truly democratic nation being birthed from the ashes of war and destruction.

But I can't say that I love my right to vote here in America as these men do, and I can't say that I have the same passion and faith in my political process as these men do, and I can't even begin to feel the hope that these people feels for the people and country that they evidently still love so much.

And because of that, I am humbled.

Saad Algharabi, 31, drove nine hours in a van with his family, including two infants, from Jacksonville, Fla., to get to Nashville. "I would drive 10 hours, 20 hours - I would drive to California - to have my vote counted for once," Mr. Algharabi, who came to this country from Iraq nine years ago, said as he waited in 20-degree temperatures outside the basketball court [in Nashville] where Iraqis were registering. "This vote is worth more to me than any drive."

"We can vote, and that means we are human beings," Hydar Albussairi, 28, said. "Now we are human beings."