I think the lesson from Iraq for everyone -- including the Bush administration -- is that before you decide to invade a country and depose a government that works, you should consider where you are going to find a replacement. Really, what we've seen is that Iraq is medieval enough it takes a citizen-gassing dictator to keep it from turning into complete chaos. We deposed that dictator and now we have a chaos.
I couldn't agree more that United States never should have messed with Iraq, but it is also obvious it would be totally irresponsible to walk away from it now. This is one mistake that U.S. will have to keep paying for -- in blood and dollars -- until it can hand Iraq over to something resembling a stable government. You can thank Dubya for starting this disaster, but remember two wrongs don't make a right.
Edit:
quote:
Originally posted by Jhrono
Thank god for living in a nation where communism never existed. You have no idea what it is.
Do you? I had no idea Portugal was a communist state at any point in time.
Strictly speaking, communism has never been fully implemented anywhere. Virtually all the regimes throughout the history that we refer to as communist are actually not and are some variation on socialism. Secondary characteristics, such as authoritarianism, are not necessarily a consequence of communism or socialism per se, but rather a consequence of how these regimes came to be -- so I think the term is tossed around in these forums without true understanding of what it means.
