Submitted by concerned canadian, Dec 8, 2006 03:16

George W. Bush seems to be on the warpath to bring democracy to other countries by any means necessary. This project is a failed one and all efforts to continue on such a trajectory will ultimatly fail. I'm not saying that because I want that to be the out come, but because there are serious obstacles standing in the way of true peace and democracy occurring in the middle east.

1) Democracy doesn't seem to have any really positive models, least of all the US. Bush's sarcasm about reading the report shows that even when the tax payers pay for a good report to be made, that often that advice never makes it to the executive. These reports are the voice of the people, through their proxies in government, to make jokes about not listening to them is to openly insult the democratic process.

2) Blair's input that "the task before them is daunting" is laughable, for surely the task is mostly behind them, isn't it? If the American people had been told that three years after "Mission Accomplished" they would only incur more and more losses of soldiers, then would then have a "daunting task before them" then I'm sure they would have considered the options more closely.

3) Pearl Harbor, To compare the events in Iraq to the events in Pearl Harbor is a stretch of the imagination as much as it is an insult to those who died in the Pacific. Blair is using the reference as a polemic device so as to bring into the minds of people that 911 was likewise the "Pearl Habor" that some have likened it too, that brought America into this war. Quite the contrary, America whole heartedly sought this war, and was willing to ignore any intelligence they had, to fabricate what they didn't have, and to lie to their own people, to make it happen.

4) Bush's notion of a conversation requires some adjustment. A conversation implies both listening and speaking, on the part of everyone involved. Conversations are not monologues where only the powerful get a chance to speak. Bush has no real desire to speak in any frank way with anyone in the middle east. The notion that the US will not negotiate with terrorists is really a different wording of the maxim that the US will not negotiate, or converse in an arena where the probability is that they will appear foolish and deceptive.

5) Bush and Blair both seem to be making notions that they will confront Iran and Syria on becoming democratic. Well if democratic means bending over to the demands of the US, which it appears to mean because that's all that ever happens to any nation that adopts democracy at the US's insistance, then its no real surprise that no middle eastern country desires to adopt it.

6) Both Bush and Blair, in weighing suffering, seem to tilt the balance heavily in favor of the suffering of those they consider important. Blair is to go to get the release of the Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit, but seems indifferent to the suffering and dying of many Lebanese civilians that had their homes and lives destroyed by the Israeli invasion. If you want people to believe that democracy is a better more compassionate system, you must convey that to the world.

Most importantly, we have learned through numerous historical figures that peace is the only road to peace, and the US seems only interested in War as the road to peace.

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