Questions to Consider on the Iraq War

I still do not think the War in Iraq was a mistake. There, it is said. And I know that many readers of this blog will disagree with me vehemently. And with valid points, though I think their arguments do not change the fundamental wisdom of removing Sadaam Hussein - the butcher of Baghdad, the depth of whose atrocities we are only now coming to understand - from power. That being said, I try to always keep an open mind. A new article from Pat Buchanan raises some interesting points, and draws some historical parallels that anyone who supports the war needs to consider.

"Free people are not drawn to violent and malignant ideologies," declared Bush. Oh? Explain, then, why 70 million Germans, under the most democratic government in their history, gave more than half their votes to Nazis and Communists in 1933? In every plebiscite he held, Hitler won a landslide. In the year of Anschluss and Munich, 1938, Hitler was Time's Man of the Year and far more popular than FDR, who lost 71 seats in the House.

During 2006, free Latin peoples brought to power anti-American Leftists Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and Rafael Correa in Ecuador, and came close to electing their comrades Ollanta Humala in Peru and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico.

In the free elections Bush demanded in Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq, the winners were the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, Hamas and Shia militants with ties to Iran.

If a referendum were held in the Middle East on the proposition of the U.S. military out and Israel gone, how does Bush think it would come out?

This of course does raise an interesting question for us. Is Democracy self-perpetuating, or fundamentally self-destructing?