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Mona Charen has hit squarely on Time's motives - squirming as they are on a pin, and yet, not wanting to make an admission that the man they will be actively churning out propaganda was indeed, the best candidate for Man of the Year, George W. Bush. So the soldiers were used as surrogates, "We support the troops, but not their mission" sort of thing, avoiding, at all costs, the real reason for the mission of toppling Saddam Hussein. This is necessary demolition work, to somehow clear away the monstrosity of a regime that the intertwined theocracies and banditry govern the people by. There are a sufficient number of intelligent, relatively well-informed people in Iraq to form the nucleus of a viable representative government. But first, certain traditional behavior problems must be identified and addressed.

Oh, people say, you will destroy the traditional Islamic culture. If I recall correctly, the basic theology of the Christian churches of Germany was largely free of any interference from the occupying forces after WW II (East Germany remained largely Lutheran even while it was the Soviet area of occupation), and Japan religious institutions were mostly permitted to have wide latitude in their activity while the US occupied Japan. The Islamic religion does not exist only in the government. There is a wide range of activity also that the mosques and madrasses carry on that has nothing to do with government. There is a closer relationship between the teachings of Mohammed and daily life in Basra, perhaps, than there is between the teachings of Christ and daily life in, say, Indiana, but still, making religion a part of any government is taking on a major liability for both the church and the secular government.

One part of our excursion into Baghdad is to leave an opening by which a representative government may be formed, while not surrendering authority of that government over to some religious sect or another. Saddam had solved this problem by the simple and direct means of suppressing practically all religious expression, and only used his tenuous connection with the Sunni sect as a means of buying and holding loyalty of a relatively small portion of the total population of Iraq.

You are probably right about the choice of Time magazine, but I think its way overdue. Seriously, because of the American soldier more than 50% of the world is democratic than compared to a century ago hen only 5% of the world elected their governments.

Not Dean. His arrogance is so hot it throws off sparks. Speaking of hate, his campaign has so far been about little else.

Dean is nothing but pure hatred. He also is trying to gain credibility by proxy by claiming he has military family members so he cares about the military. Its a total lie of course, most leftists do this to feign concern about our fighting men and women.