Sacrifice and Freedom

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today: "Reporting from Najaf, the Washington Post tells a story that poignantly contrasts tyranny and freedom:
'My father helped bring this election today,' said Farezdak Abdel Nibi, 34, at a whitewashed concrete school building serving as a polling station.
When Nibi was 20, he and his father were eating breakfast when Iraqi security officials burst in and took them away, he said. Their arrest came during a large roundup of Shiites by Hussein's security apparatus. Nibi and his father, speechless in fear, were taken to a police station. Nibi said he was held for 15 days. The last time his father was seen alive was three years later. After that, there was no news about what happened to him, Nibi said.
'We kept our hope that he had survived. But when we saw all the mass graves Saddam had made, I knew that we had lost him,' Nibi said.
'This election is the fruit of every drop of blood that was shed in 1991,' Nibi said, referring to a Shiite uprising following the Persian Gulf War that was brutally suppressed by Hussein's forces. 'I thank my father. He had three sons who married. None of us had a wedding party, out of respect for him. Today, we can celebrate. Today, we will have a wedding party.'"