I do not say that in ingratitude of the efforts of the people of color and the women who made suffrage their lifelong struggle. I realize from my brief study of American history and from the number of years I have lived in this country how central voting is to the American definition of liberty; the very same liberty the defense of which was part of the reason we went to war in Iraq. Rather, I view the concept of "democracy" in the same way many of my fellow Iraqis do. Heavily cynical of most people's definition of democracy, I give up my right to vote with absolutely no regrets.

I'm told that our troops are in Iraq to defend America's freedom and to defeat freedom-haters.  I can't help but wonder, how many Iraqis were plotting day and night, conspiring feverishly to take away your right to vote?  What was the average Iraqi thinking when he stopped worrying about his child dying under sanctions, suspended his terror of Saddam's crushing tyranny, and ignored the diseases depleted uranium inflicted on him, all in order to take the time to hate Americans' right to vote? How many people in Fallujah despised American arrestees' right to Miranda warnings? How many more Iraqis stopped mourning their children lost to Iraq's many wars and mass graves just so they can ponder how much they detest the Statue of  Liberty's architecture? 

The democracy we sought to defend, the one we insisted on teaching Iraqis, has claimed the lives of thousands of people. It has tortured prisoners, maimed civilians, raped women and belligerently termed the victims of genocide "collateral damage."  When the maintenance of freedom depends on killing other people, it's no longer called freedom. When democracy sustains itself by feasting on people's blood, including that of its own citizens', it is defined as anything but democracy.

It is in solidarity with the victims of this "democracy", victims from Detroit to Baghdad, that I choose not to vote. That goes for voting in general.  As for this November specifically, I may superficially appear to have every compelling reason to vote.  After all, I am an Iraqi and my heart weeps along with those of the grieving widows and orphans in Baghdad, Basra, Najaf, Fallujah, Karbala, and Mosul. Don't I owe them

the duty to vote out their American butcher (Bush) now that their Iraqi butcher (Saddam) is finally gone?

Well, what electable alternatives do I have? None other than the Democrats, naturally. We found the Republicans going to war over nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, sending our sons and daughters to a place that didn't greet them with roses, and embarrassing the United States in the world's public eye unforgivable. How, then, can we forgive the Democrats' deliberate starving of the Iraqi people by sanctions, killing 1.7 million of them (according to the United Nations), and bombing them periodically for the duration of both Clinton's terms?  If we find the Republicans' acts so repugnant, how can we easily forget Madeline Albright's considering half a million Iraqi children's lives "worth it"? If George W. Bush's decision to drag the country into war was a crime, how can we excuse John Kerry's

collaboration? He did vote for the war, didn't he? Of course, every once in a while, you'll hear someone argue that while Kerry's policy on Iraq is not substantially different from Bush's, we should nevertheless vote for him because at least Democrats improve the economy. The omitted sentence in that argument is "improve the economy, and the Iraqis can go to hell".

I will not vote into office a Democrat who latches onto my people's suffering to advance his own power-lusting, partisan agenda. Someone told me that Iraqis celebrated Clinton's election after the 1991 Gulf War. They, like too many Americans today, fell for the "anyone but Bush" rhetoric. They will know better than to feel overjoyed by the presence of a Democrat in the White House this time.

America is still America, regardless of whether its president is a Republican or a Democrat. By the same token, an occupied country is still occupied, tying a man's genitals to electric wires is still torture, and ordering tanks to roam another country's streets is still imperialism, regardless of whether the president is a Republican or a Democrat. Democrats are every bit as culpable and un-repenting as Republicans and Baathists. I will feel no more justified by Kerry succeeding Bush than an Iraqi did when Paul Bremer succeeded Jay Garner.

Iraqis did participate in democracy a few months ago, and I'm not talking about the formation of Iraq's interim government. In April 2004, Fallujah was bombed and besieged. Over seven hundred people were killed. Hundreds from Baghdad walked 35 miles to donate their blood, their food and their love to their fellow occupied Iraqis in the abused city. Of course, US blockades surrounded Fallujah and stood in the Baghdadis' way. The Baghdadis peacefully broke through the blockades with their bare hands and inspired the world by their courageous humanitarian act.

Similarly, in Benton Harbor, Michigan last year, an entire city rioted in protest to a white police officer's slaying of an African-American motorcyclist. In Jenin and Gaza, battered Palestinians took to the streets to protest the their occupation and the occupation of their brothers and sisters in Iraq.

The chants of  angry protesters from Baghdad, Benton Harbor and Palestine are manifestations of peoples' collective will. To my mind, that is the true definition of democracy. The democracy I choose to participate in does not take place for half an hour once every four years in a closed voting booth, where I find myself asking a politician to control my life and the lives of others. Instead, it unfolds when I join hands with people of all racial and religious backgrounds and I march with them, rain or shine, in solidarity with humanity and in defiance of artificial democracy and those who compete to lead it.

Hawra Karama is an Iraqi-American anti-war, anti-racist activist. She was born in Baghdad, Iraq and can be reached at hawrakarama@yahoo.com

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