"Let's Talk About Iraq" by Thomas Friedman(NYT--(6/15/05)

Reading Thomas Friedman today, I have to admit I am totally out of my depth in the discussion of what to do there.
Perhaps doubling the ground troops there would be more beneficial, but where would they come from? One of my biggest
worries, if we don't start phasing troops out as soon as we can humanly say, "The Iraqis are able to rule themselves", is that there's already too much of a temptation to our government to expand the war into Syria and other middle-eastern countries. We know there have already been skirmishes on the Syrian border.

Sven relates to me that Paul Wolfowitz and John Bolton belong to a group called Project for a New American Century,
whose goal is to spread democracy throughout the middle-east, BY FORCE.

I asked him: "Don't they know how upset everyone was when Hitler invaded Europe?" "Yes," he countered ironically,
"But Hitler was BAD and WE'RE good."

I'm not a liberal who wants to see democracy fail in Iraq. Few liberals are. But we deny that destroying, on false grounds, another sovereign nation: roughly 100,000 Iraquis; their police, electricity and water; and infrastructure vital to the economy, was the right method of bringing it all about.

Plus, while you're doing all that, please don't forget to re-install fair elections here at home.