Originally posted by Don Cardi:
But being that you brought this up, let me give you a little more insight as to what a part of the strategy in fighting this war in Iraq is also about. It is being fought in the hopes of democratizing that region of the world so that democracy will spread into other countries in that region. Hopefully it will spread into places like Iran, and rid Iran of a government and an extremist leader who continually supports terrorism, threatens the people of Israel, and isolates the good people of Iran from the rest of the world.
Hopefully the results of this war in Iraq will give the Iraqi people the opportunity to finally live in a democracy, and at the same time be an example to the rest of that region, showing that religious democracy, cultural democracy, and democracy in general can and will work.
Don Cardi 
DC your optimism is a really noble trait (I am not being sarcastic, and I wish I shared it) but I think you have to admit that this Iraq war plan has failed.
The initial argument for this war was that Saddam was a threat to our national security and that he had WMD's or at least the capactiy to produce them on very short notice. That is what Colin Powell told the U.N. The bringing democracy to Iraq part was more of an after thought, although some of the books coming out now say it was the real reason the neocons wanted the war, and that the Saddam
issue was a mere pretext.
The bottom line is that you don't spread democracy at gunpoint. Oddly enough there now appears to be a better chance for some kind of democracy to emerge in places like Lebanon and Palestine, and maybe eventually Iran than in Iraq. What we are going to have to understand is that if free elections in places like that are not going to produce the kind of results we like for some time.
As things stand right now, the only hope I see for Iraq is some kind of huge Marshall Plan type of deal where they get their infrastructure back and then they have the feeling that they have too much to lose by continuing their civil war.
I would concentrate in the Kurdish areas, and the more peaceful parts of the country first and then work into Baghdad and the more violent regions last. This will take more than a U.S. effort it will take tons of money from all over, and it will probably take a new president of the US to implement it because this one has lost his credibility.
The real bad actors in that region are the Saudis who have as brutal a regime as anyone, but who enjoy our good will because of their oil. We need to bring heat on them to cough up money to shore up our efforts there before we go broke trying to save these people from themselves.
As for the virulent anti-semitic diatribe that started this thread, all I can say is I am appalled. This kind of crap has been floating around forever. The "Jews control the media" line is pure bullshit. Fox, Time Warner, General Elecrtic, Viacom, Disney, Gannett, Cox Newspapers,The Tribune Company, and Knight Ridder are all publically held mega corporations which own most of the media in this country. The New York Times is owned by a Jewish family, but that is one newspaper, and not the entire media. The Wall Street Journal is owned by the Dow Jones Company -- hardly a zionist organization. Please stop these factually erroneous attacks on religious groups.
