so it takes a death to make you like Bush eh? How typical of the man. Imagine! You don't like him until someone dies. They you like him. Whatev.

Very succinct despite the drivel miki drones on about.

I live in England. Yeterday one of my colleagues got on a plane to Washington to pay her last respect to the Ray-Gun's remains. This is nothing if it isn't psychotic. I wouldn't travel that sort of distance to see a live Bush (even if I do want to marry him) let alone a dead Reagan. Its disturbing

Basically, when one cuts through all the high-sounding rhetoric, this is nothing more than an ends justify the means argument. But if Bush were truly interested in giving Democracy its best chance of survival in Iraq, there is a lot more he could have done:
1) admit to the Iraqi people, as well as Americans, that we had made a mistake in supporting Hussein in the 80's despite knowing that he was using chemical weaponry against the Kurds (amongst others) and made it clear that we will never again value political expediency above human life;
2) planned better for the possibility that the Iraqis might not be as supportive of an American occupying force as they turned out not to be (considering our past support of Hussein, have we really given them any reason to trust us?);
3)barred Halliburton from any of the Iraqi restructuring contracts. Even if one agrees they were best suited for the job, doing so would have gone a long way to laying to rest any suspicion the Iraqis may have had that the war was undertaken for financial gain;
4) allowed companies that weren't part of the alliance to bid on the contracts. Not only did this make him sound like a petulant preteen who decides to take his ball and go home when things don't go his way, but I was under the impression that we went into this war to do what was best for the Iraqis, not as a favor granting scheme to those who supported us; and
5) made it clear that even if he didn't think that enemy combatants were deserving of being covered by the Geneva Convention standards, that they were still entitled to basic human rights. If nothing else, this would have given us a means to show that things, like the treatment of prisoners, are done differently, and better, under democracies than they are under dictatorships. But more importantly, it would have all but guaranteed that something like the scandal that took place at Abu Ghraib would have never happened.

i think that bush and this whole thing you say about starving children and no water...blah blah blah... in the U.S. there are so many of our OWN PEOPLE that are left without water and food and die of hunger each day. Our troops are over in hell to defend our country that is fooling more than 50% of our people. The troops are without the right protection. Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Why are we not in Afghanastan? I dont understand how you really think that our greatful leader is real leading our country... i hope when i 30 i will not be living in slavery anymore. how do you think the roman empire fell? hummm sound like it will happen eventually. oh and how about your rights as a female getting thrown away because what bush says is that it makes our country weaker.. yeah i really wanna stand up and shake this morons hand!

'Basically, when one cuts through all the high-sounding rhetoric, this is nothing more than an ends justify the means argument.'
Well spotted, Emoticon Man. This argument is on a par with those other classic Machievellian arguments: 'Like him or not, Hitler certainly built some cracking motorways' and 'Mussolini? Well he may have been a fascist but at least he made the trains run on time.'

may whatever gods exist have mercy on your soul.

TBT

What about afganastan?