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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JDN who wrote (500337)	11/29/2003 5:32:05 PM
From: geode00	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Based upon your reply to the poster I am thinking maybe you are Muslim. No, I'm not a Muslim. I will reply to the rest of your post anyway. Heck, if I were an Iraqi and especially a religious one I would be most appreciative of the cost the Americans have gone to in blood and treasury to attempt to create a Democracy in Iraq. What in the Almighty's name could POSSIBLY be wrong with that? However you are not an Iraqi who has lived under 100 years of imperialism and dictatorship. The Brits arbitrarily carved up and put together a country and the US et al supported Saddam for decades. It's a complicated issue that requires some empathy on our part to understand the seemingly odd reactions we are getting. "Democracy in Iraq" would consist of immediate national elections that could vote in a Shiite dominated theocracy. Democracy does not mean social liberalism, capitalism or a US friendly society. Note that it's the US dragging its feet on a national election which the admin views as potentially dangerous just for this reason. They wanted to initially carve up Iraq into provinces and install US governors in each. Now that was a nonstarter. Iraqis, depending on who they are and where they happen to live, have mixed feelings about the US. Nice to get rid of Saddam (unless you're a supporter) but they blame us in part for keeping him in power in the first place. They also blame us in part or whole for the sanctions which have devastated the economy and was responsible for many deaths. Lately, they see the US as having destabilizied the country by knocking down the security structure without replacing it with much of anything. The appointed governing council isn't seen as democratic or representative and is now being slapped with accusations of corruption in the awarding of the mobile phone contract. It's not a simplistic good and bad picture. You have to go to the movies for that.