The main stream media has stopped complaining about the weather. You blast the MSM for failing to report the sunshine. I look out my window and see rain. You answer: “Why do you insist on rain (Boomer, DesertLover)? You love rain (terrig)! You’re making it rain (JHSII)! It’s raining even harder somewhere else (docflash, Mister P). Why do you expect it to stop raining so soon (DBNinKY)?”

James Greenidge
Queens NY

People who think like this, that a democracy is built in the blink of an eye, should remember that democracies take time, energy and patience. They often cost money, requisite valuable resources that may be used elsewhere, and usually require violence before they are able to stand on their own. And, yes, they sometimes require the blood and treasury of other nations.

Whenever I hear people complain about Iraq and the slow rate of success we are experiencing there, I remember a story one of my philosophy professors told us about the time he was stationed in Germany in 1951. He was an army chaplain in Tennessee and was excited to be ordered to a base in Germany. He said he had heard how wonderful Germany was, that the people loved Americans, and that their nation was recovering nicely from the Nazis regime and was becoming prosperous again.

Upon arrival, he said nothing could be farther from the truth: the people were living in dire poverty and starvation was rampant; the men were jobless, hopeless and violently drunk; the women, mostly single mothers whose husbands had died in the war, were selling themselves and their children – both girls and boys – on street corners to buy food; and that they all blamed Americans for their condition and hated them violently! He said none of the U.S. military families stepped out of the view of an MP for fear of being attacked or shot – especially at night! He said one day a seven year old American boy, a son of one of the GI’s at the base, was beaten to death by some German youths when the boy stepped outside a fence to retrieve his ball. Professor Moore said he barely escaped being attacked himself by some drunken German men when, while speaking to some citizens on a street corner, he was assailed for his American accent.

My point with this little story is that no nation blithely, painlessly, and unerringly under goes a democratic metamorphosis in the span of four short years. It just doesn’t happen, especially, not for one that has been held in a time lock of oppression the way Iraq has been. Just like Japan and Germany before them, Iraq’s change will take time, energy, and patience – lots and lots of patience.

It seems that the Kurds who control northern Iraq allow Kurdish “freedom fighters” (aka terrorists) safe haven to conduct operations in eastern Turkey.

Of course many Kurds in northern Iraq assist the freedom fighters. And of course the PKK are terrorist. I don’t think these facts are a surprise to anyone except you.

There are more killings daily in places like Darfur,Kenya,Detroit,L.A., Houston than in Iraq.We need a surge here

Is there a more dangerous place than Laredo?