Yeah right. You know, If the average Iraqie had a choice, have Democracy and his daughter in a short dress or an Islamic state, what would he choose? These people will NEVER enbrace democracy, at least not the way we look upon it.

George Bush is playing with the lives of American soldiers for his own purposes, and the gullible soldiers are following his orders. He dont care about spreading democracy and helping the Iraqi people, he cares about himself, and is after their oil. How many more people has to die is this war thats a total lie. Americans should embark on mass protest to bring the troops back home

"No Nation building" eh,George? What a lying sack of $h*t.While it sounds altruistic,no one but a fascist would force their way of life on others at gunpoint and call it "liberation".If you really wanted to spread Democracy,you'd make it work AT HOME and teach by EXAMPLE.That just ain't happenin here.All this talk about promoting "Freedom" doesn't jibe with decimating our Bill of Rights and Constitution.This is the epitome of poisonous hypocracy.

Otherwise known as nation building, which is a sorely fallacious concept, particularly if it is undertaken, for the most part, by one single nation.

This is a highly noble goal, which, if pursued by the United States, can go a long way in re-habilitating our image throughout the world. However, we must also remember that it takes more than mere rhetoric to convince people of our goals. It's going to take a creative policy approach that balances security interests with other softer political goals. That said, I don't believe that we should try to force people to adopt democracy. People and individual nations have to develop such institutions on their own time line, considering certain cultural norms. Democracy certainly isn't one size fits all. Comparatively speaking, democracy means something different to every nation institutionally, even to Western nations. We should promote democracy throughout the world, but not impose it. Certainly we can criticize Bush for the approach he took in executing the Iraq War and its outcome, but the success of Iraq as a democratic nation will only come about if the Iraqis so choose to make it work. Even if we wanted to impose a democracy, that just cannot happen, freedom isn't free; it has to be cultivated at all social levels. Ask any of the other nations like Britain which came before us in the region about that one.

This is the horrible revival of the disastrous Wilsonian nightmare visited on civilization as a result of the US intervention into WWI, Mexican Intervention, Caribbean interventions and the Paris Peace Conference. Ango-Saxon institutions are a result of 900 years of trial and error including civil wars and other calamities. Each society has to develope in its own way.

I wont waste too much time here because you people are making me mad. Ditto to what Mr. ESCHEW said. I could not have said it better. Thank you Mr. Eschew. Thank God for those like him and I who still have Back-Bone while still having human compassion.

As voting began, thousands upon thousands of citizens lined up to vote--and this wasn't even the presential/parlimentary election yet! Young and old, male and female--and all under constant threat of attack from the ragtag insurgency of villianous terrorists--they came and stamped the grand approval for democracy in the thousands. Now, women have freedoms no other fundamentalist muslim nation has ever known. Now, the Iraqi people have a chance for something that sounds so simple, and yet was not under the evil boot of a villainous thug like Saddam Hussein--the chance to be free.

Inspiring terrorism is more like it.

Ah, the arrogance of some born under democracy, callling it a wet dream, mocking these people sacrificing their lives for the success of their government. Is spreading democracy important? Not to me. It might be to the 75% of Iraqis who risked their lives by voting last January. How easy it is to sit in your (now relatively) safe country and insult those who see a cause worth fighting for, worth spending billions of dollars for, worth dying for. Tell the newly elected leaders of the Iraqi government, the ones who every single day risk their lives having their names published, that it's all a wet dream. That their death won't matter any more than the thousands already killed by the insurgency we created. It's the insurgency's worst nightmare. Are they as wrong about it as Bush? Is there truly nothing for them to be concerned about, it's only a wet dream on the part of a handful of wrong-headed Americans, living in a dream world? No, spreading democracy is not important to me. Supporting people who have courageously initiated and continued this struggle IS important to me. And I chuckle at how similar today's anti-war shriekers sound to those of the late 1960's and early 1970's. No matter how frustrating it becomes to you anti-war faithful, he will not relent as Lyndon Johnson did. He will not capitulate and surrender, due to the frenzied shrieks of those who hate any military actionon the part of the US military, he will not surrender as Nixon did.

A wet-dream of Americans who live in the fantasy world that tells them that their way of life should be the way of the world. For the last time, kids- the last time we really 'spread' democracy was when our occupation of Japan ended. That worked. . .us trying to 'spread democracy' in the Middle East won't work as long as we invade nations based on lies about weapons and threats. Issues about the thousands of innocent civilian casualties have been ignored by our media. Even if Americans are fooled, Middle Easterners aren't.

Like I've said before and I'll say it again- spreading democracy isn't an easy task. Building a new government from ashes isn't something that should be expected to occur overnight. Yet here we are only two years out from the beginning of this operations and Iraqi's have gone to the polls, they're working on their first constitution and they're doing so without resorting to violence. Yes there is a highly dangerous and very well organized largely foreign terrorist insurgency that is creating havoc in areas on Iraq- but in the grand scheme of things is quite small. Iraqi's are doing what free countries do- they dialogue, they debate and they play politics. If you put their successes in the context of the birth of our nation they're someone successful. Our first national government failed. It took years to agree on a new one. We've fought numerous bloody wars, had a civil war- this stuff isn't easy but it's worth the fight. For me the fact that Iraqi's are engaging in the process of democracy now is a huge success. Is it perfect no but that shouldn't be what is expected. Years from now we'll be able to really determine how successful our efforts were but for now I'd have to say we've succeeded at spreading democracy to the greatest degree possible.

I'll give it more stars once we see what happens when the elected officials actually start governing and see how their complicated election year cycle plays out at least once. The progress so far is definatly worth celebrating, but we've seen far, far too many third-word democracies that went sour quickly for me to be too hopeful.

The election turnout in Iraq was an outstanding achievement. The only reason this item doesn't get five stars from me is the absence of the Sunni's participation in the political process.