Back to prejudice for a bit. DB is right. We all see all things with a prejudice somewhere. And to me, our biggest failure in Iraq, and other global issues, comes down to our inability to see the depth of issues beyond our own American eyes, perspectives and prejudices.

Really, who are we to say Iraq must have a democracy? Is it not arrogant to tell the world that AMERICAN democracy is the best for the rest of the world? In my opinion, while AMERICAN democracy is great, it is not the greatest it could be. As many have pointed out, it is a wonderful feeling knowing that every four years we can have a change in political leadership without a fear of juntas in the streets and the violent overthrow of a government, but there are terrible flaws in our own system that are so hard to change for the better.

For example, whether one is a democrat or republican, liberal or conservative, there is something inherently unethical about a Supreme Court Justice (Scalia) acting as if there is nothing wrong with him spending two days at an energy exective owned private duck hunting property with a man (Cheney) who will be party to a Supreme Court case held before him later this year.

And in a capitalistic country, how can anyone with logical thinking believe that corporate business owners meeting with goverment officials over corporate policy will take to heart the concerns of the American citizenry? Let us be honest. For one thing, it is against the progression of capitalism to take the interests of the American people to heart. By this I mean, the corporate bottom line will always be, at its most reduced level a very basic concept - "how can we get more dollars and resources from the hands of the American people and the lands of the US." You have to continue to feed the beast and the more you feed the beast, the bigger the beast gets and the bigger the beast gets, the larger the appetite to the beast grows. And so it goes...

We are a country of 300 million in a world of 6 billion, but we act like we are a country of 5.7 billion in a country of 6 billion. As someone once professed in an earlier posting, we should be exporting freedom and true democracy, not democracy based on business interests. And to do this we must become more humane, respectful and more honestly introspective of our own faults.