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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (221077)	2/27/2005 6:12:37 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1572963

He's brought democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq. Therein lies your problem. He has not brought Iraq or Afghanistan to democracy. He has brought the two countries to a place where it is a possible consideration. However, neither is a functioning democracy. ted

To: RetiredNow who wrote (221077)	2/28/2005 1:16:07 AM
From: Elroy	Respond to of 1572963

It's a first step that would not have happened if it hadn't been for Bush's actions in the Middle East. We'll never really know that, will we. You've got authoritarian governments which transformed on their own into democratic societies in Chile, Brazil, South Korea, South Africa, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Indonesia in the past 40 years, just to name a few. I suppose you credit Bush for all those transformations :-) The next steps will be to continue the relentless pressure against Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. What relentless pressures have been applied to Saudi Arabia so far? I must have missed those. I think the so called "royals" still rule EVRYTHING, and take a disproportionate share of the oil revenues in order to have nice multimillion $ birthday parties for their 5 year old kids, while 30% of the "regular" Saudis are unemployed.... It may take another decade, but we have to keep up the pressure until it happens. Wishing and hoping does nothing for us and asking pretty please does nothing for us. Action against the bad actors, sanctions, and political pressure brings results. Bush understands that and as a result has gotten results in the Middle East. Others who have gone the diplomatic route in the Middle East haven't had nearly as much progress. Think about Clinton again. If he couldn't achieve peace with diplomacy in the Middle East, then we have to seriously consider the possibility that diplomacy without the real threat of military action, simply won't work. Bush has built up a lot of credibility in the Middle East around the fact that he doesn't make idle military threats. Now he is using that military credibility to pressure all these despots...and it is working so far. Let's see how this plays out. He's brought democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq. Let's see if he can bring it to Palestine, Lebanon, and Egypt as well. OK, that's what we're all doing!