"Dan White" wrote in
:

"Nate Perkins" wrote in message
. 125.201...
"Dan White" wrote in
:

"Rob Mitchell" wrote in message
...

I don't believe that you can 'jumpstart' a democracy in the kind
of environment you have in Iraq, at least not one that is
favourable to the US. I think you will be tied down in Iraq for
many years, and in the end another dictator, as bad as Saddam will
be brought in, and all the while, N. Korea will be making 8
A-bombs/year, or so I've heard. (according to Professor Graham
Allison of Harvard -the number may not be accurate, who really
knows.)


History may not support your guess. Look at Italy, Germany and
Japan after WW2. People said the exact same thing about those
places, and look at them now. I think we were in Japan for 7
years, and people said they were basically unable to support a
democracy. I don't see a reason for your extremely negative spin
on the potential outcome in Iraq other than sour grapes. If some
form of democracy and real peace comes out of Iraq the skeptics
will have nothing left to complain about. I'd say that so far Iraq
is on track. I don't know the final outcome, either, but I see no
reason to conclude that the effort is sure to fail. But, you are
entitled to your opinion of course.

"Eighteen months after we occupied Germany, the nation was
de-Nazified and pacified. Eighteen months after we occupied Iraq,
Islamic fundamentalism
is
on the rise and, as Colin Powell now concedes, "We are fighting an
intense insurgency [and] .... it’s getting worse." -- Pat Buchanan,
The American Conservative Magazine, Oct 25 2004.

Looks like conservatives like Pat Buchanan are also putting forth an
extremely negative spin that must be sour grapes.

If you know anything about Pat Buchanan you would know this has
nothing to do with conservatives in general. Buchanan ran as a third
party candidate, remember? He is extremely protectionist, and just
about nothing would satisfy him.

Precisely, the policies of the Bush camp and of the neoconservatives (is
that the PC term?) are not representative of conservatives in general.
It isn't hard to find quite a few conservatives expressing reservations
toward or opposition to the war.

Are we to believe that all of these conservatives are just "putting
forth an extremely negative spin" that "must be sour grapes?"