[mburbank]

Ronnie, that's great! Uhm... Beyond saying those thre words, you wouldn't have any thoughts at all you'd care to share about how to attain those goals?

'Cause I'd hate to see you actually say something that King W might then do the opposite of and you'd have to get all semantical to keep your head from blowing off by admitting one of you was wrong.


FS: That's so funny because it's so true.


As to what happens next? I said what I think WILL happen in my Chalabi and Kurd threads. What Should happen? In the very short term, every instant that goes by without us putting Doctors on the ground and ghetting their medical and sanitation facilities up an running is at best cruel and at worst criminal. We need to alleviate suffering now with our hands and not our weapons.

The long term. I have no idea at all. How do you encourage true democracy where there is such a long, long history of either dictatorship or Colonial rule? And how do we do it in a culture we have so liitle understanding of? Japan won't work as a model, because culturally they had a model of defeat, surrender and submission. Not that they enjoyed it, but there were structural moral codes of behavior to follow. Germany? Better, but still as Eurpoeans it's not like democracy had never been tried. This is entirely new ground and I wish I felt like our administration had given some serious thought to these issues, beyond Ronnies saying three words out loud.

I can think of all kinds of things we ought not do, but what we should do, now that we've toppled the regime? I haven't got a single damn clue.