This is my favorite! Heard all this in Viet Nam.

80% of their eligible voters VOTED in their last election. What might indicate to some of you that there has been a modicum of progress? Democracy isn't easy. It isn't convenient. It is war, conducted through (primarily) civil means. That is what is happening today in Iraq, don't look for it to be pretty, not like you're looking for the war to be pretty (but, this is an "ugly" war . . . like there are pretty wars)

My son's best friend came home this week, having been deployed to Iraq for 15 months. He had been stationed at Abu Graib. He manned the 50 cal. gun perched on a humvee, making multiple convoys in and out of the prison every day. He won the Bronze Star for Valor, having risked his life to save the life of another member of his convoy. Nobody even knows it, no news coverage, no radio shows. Nobody. He silently flew into town after his de-briefing in Wisconsin and appeared down the street. This kid is a hero and we (civilians) treat him like we're embarrassed. We should be embarrassed.

I asked him did he realize the significance of the Bronze Star, that it is the 3rd highest honor anyone in the Army receives (the Silver Star and the Medal of Honor are slightly more precious and rare)? He didn't. He just follwed his training, did his job. He'd never leave his friend out there to die.

This is a country at war and this is how we treat our returning heroes. No wonder we think we're losing.

No matter what anyone can say, it is very difficult to portray this conflict as a solid victory for the US or the Iraqi people as a whole. Yes, Iraq is freer than it ever was under the Ba'athist regime and power is much less centralized. Ironically enough, many of the problems which currently beset that country are exactly a result of this! I am not of the type who does not believe that Iraqis or Muslims for that matter can not handle democracy. Indeed, much of Islam has received a bad reputation because of certain extremist elements that receive the most play in the media. But there are some prerequisites that should be taken into account when forming a new state. Basically, people have to be willing to come together for the greater good. The basic element of nationhood revolves around a shared set of values that binds the majority of people together. I haven't seen this in Iraq so far. In fact, the Sunnis refuse to compromise with the Shiites regarding the new constitution. The US constitution was formed because of the founders agreed on certain basic premises that would guide the new government. Debate occurred on the finer, semantic points. There is little of this going on in Iraq. There are fundamentally different political and ideological differences that can only be bridged by force. The Sunni's, who dominate an area of Iraq that contains little oil, do not agree with the separatist sentiments of the Kurdish north and the Shiite south, all of whom contain the vast majority of Iraq's mineral wealth. The Sunni's under this scenario will be landlocked and powerless. The Sunni's, who have dominated Iraq during the modern period, view this constitution as not being in their interests economically and politically. Indeed, many Sunni provinces have declared that they will enter into a formal civil war with the other provinces should they enact this constitution against their will. And we're going to be the ones who are caught in the middle of this Wild West shootout. The Shiites were stepped on by the minority Sunni's for 80 years, and now its payback time for them. The constitution delineates certain retributive policies for handling the Sunni's, which of course does not meet their approval. Even more disconcerting is the prospect of an extremist Islamic state along the lines of Iran to fill in the power vacuum. Given that the Shiite community in Iraq, which is closely aligned with Iran, forms a majority of the population, there is a good chance that Iraq will fall towards this type of government. Unfortunately, US policy-makers have only recently begun to realize that this is a real possibility. Indeed, no matter how much some may try to play this up as democracy, theocracy is actually the worst case scenario with regards to political and economic freedom. Without reasonable controls on these factional sentiments, the Iraqi government will not start out well. Even worse, we will have a government that is intrinsically anti-American. The problem is not that Muslims cannot handle democracy, the problem, specifically in the case of Iraq, is that we have a society that has many deep factions that resort to violence and force to solve political problems. Changing this political culture will not happen even over a generation. It will take a long time for these hatreds, many of them passed down across many generations, to go away. Remember that Iraq was an artificial formed not by the will of the local population, but rather because of imperialism. It is rather easy to see why it is difficult to govern a population that has little in common; indeed that are at odds with each other. Spreading democracy is a great goal, but it doesn't come by osmosis either. Freedom is never free at the end of the day.

Win the hearts and minds of the Americans this administration lied to first. . .

I'm quite sure that bombing people and torturing them illegally will NOT win their Hearts OR minds!!!

Name me a free society in the Islamic world. That's how much the hearts and minds can be won!

We may win their minds, to a degree, but there is nothing in me that makes me believe we will ever truly win their hearts, no matter what we do.

Depends on which percentage we're aiming for. 65%? We've got it.