[ecomcon]

IMHO, the fatal mistake the Bush administration made, was the hope-against-hope decision to try to transform the Middle East through democracy. This has been proved to be something that the Iraqi leadership and people do not want enough to overcome their sectarian passions. They prefer to kill one another, aided and abetted by a religion and culture that rationalizes, if not encourages, violence. Not to mention that Saddam has conditioned them for 30 years.

There is no tradition of freedom or democracy or inherent value of the individual, no "..all men are created equal". These ideas are western, and the east doesn't share our view of their importance. In short, Islam and democracy are antagonistic to one another.

[Eagle of Liberty]

There is no tradition of freedom or democracy or inherent value of the individual, no "..all men are created equal". These ideas are western, and the east doesn't share our view of their importance. In short, Islam and democracy are antagonistic to one another.

You may want to look at pre and post-WWII Japan.

[SargeK]

"IMHO, the fatal mistake the Bush administration made, was the hope-against-hope decision to try to transform the Middle East through democracy."

I agree that the prospect for transforming the political landscape in the M.E. through democratization was always a long shot. However, it had to be tried. History would have judged us poorly had we not made the attempt.

This war will go on, and it will come here once again - just as it did in 1993 and 2001 - only the next time it will be nuclear. These fanatics will never stop until they, or we, are exterminated. That is the trajectory we are on.

I do not regret that we took a shot at liberalizing the culture there. However, if this effort has truly failed, as our esteemed leaders think it now has, we must gird ourselves for the next phase, which IMO will be the most destructive that the world has yet seen.

[altura]

The main difference between the civil strife in Iraq and that here in the U.S. is that we don't kill each other, even though a little maiming crosses our minds occasionally.