To: Hawkmoon who wrote (945 ) 5/25/2007 3:16:55 PM From: cnyndwllr Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 4152 At the risk of popping another of your sloganistic bubbles, here's a bulletin: First, Iraq is a democracy in the same sense that the constitution we forced upon the Iraqis "liberated" the women of Iraq. Think about it. Second, a true democracy in Iraq would be devastating for our interests and the interests of the Kurds and the Sunnis, not to mention Christians, women, gays, intellectuals, agnostics, Jews and the good name of democracies across the globe. Can you understand why? ....Here's a hint; what kind of democracy would you have if the majority of the voters were intolerant, radical, brutal and hated the minorities? Anyone, anyone, Bueller? "And nowhere in your response did you acknowledge those 12 million people risking their lives (knowing their voting station might be targeting for a terrorist bombing) to cast those votes. Yet, you're willing to just abandon them, and render moot the personal risk they took during that election. " Maybe it's just me but I'm funny that way. When a majority of a people want to kill me and are, in fact, doing just that, and most of the rest of them don't care enough to try to help me stay alive so that I can "help" them, I don't give a shit if they walked somewhere to vote to have their bad guys in government instead of someone else's bad guys. So, yes, I'm not only "willing to abandon them," I'm eager to abandon them and mind my own business. "Have we been "occupying" Germany for all of those years? " No. And as far as your continued claim that we aren't occupying Iraq, see my post describing our involvement in Iraq and tell me, if Iraq had successfully invaded and occupied Kuwait under the same circumstances how you'd have argued that Iraq was only staying to "help" the "duly elected" new Kuwaiti government. Or would you say it was a puppet government bought and paid for by Iraq and that Iraq was really an occupying force? Let me guess at the answer. And you'd have been right, just as those of us who understand that we can't install a puppet government and then claim legitimacy for an occupation in Iraq are right. But you continue to ignore my reasoning and resort back to that conclusion based on those faulty assumptions because, truly, that's all you've got. Ed