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To: cheryl williamson who wrote (53625)	4/8/2003 1:48:58 AM
From: Elroy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

None of your analogies are very close to what is going on in Iraq today. With the possible exception of the Napolean/Russian situation, you can't argue that the populations of the invaded country might be better off after the invasions/wars in your examples. The US has freedom of speech and religion, representative government, the idea of all people being born equal and a recent history of "liberating, and then leaving" (S. Korea, Japan, Germany, Panama, Grenada, Kuwait). Over the upcoming years the liberation of Iraq will probably impose the first three on the Iraqi people (freedom of speech and religion, democratic government and equality), and then end with the fourth (the US departure). That doesn't sound (especially the departure part) like any of the historical disasters you listed. Hitler wanted to "liberate the Poles" from tyranny, I thought he wanted to install a master Aryan race on the planet (which didn't include Polish jews) and also wanted the whole world to speak German? Did any of the Poles want him in there to "liberate" them? Napoleon wanted to "liberate the Russians from Czarist dictators" And then did he want to leave the Russians alone to run their own country in a non-dictatorship? India still wants to "liberate Hindus from Muslim tyranny in Kashmir" Irish Catholics want to "liberate Northern Ireland from Protestant tyranny" Bin-Laden wanted to "liberate the Middle-East from Western tyranny" The Ottomans wanted to "eliminate the tyranny of Christian Holy-Warriors from Armenia and Lebanon" The above are all efforts to force one population to adopt the attacker's religion. The US couldn't care less what religion the Iraqi regime was, so your religious "liberation" comparisons don't work. There are only 2 legitimate arguments that current events will not be a "liberation" of Iraq. The first is that you don't believe the US is going to leave after a new regime is established. If that is your argument, history proves you wrong and common sense does as well. The second is that the regime established by the US coalition will not be better than what they had - this is hard to imagine unless you believe a fascist dictatorships is the best those poor people can muster. As for liberation not being a good enough reason to go to war, it is the only morally justifiable reason. Go to war to make the country a better place for the population of the country (I think this will be the result of the current events, we'll see).