[DanaC]

Okay......you wanted to give Iraq freedom....so why is it that the first thing the coalition did was dismantle the Iraqi's entire civil infrastructure and then hope that 'something' would magically replace it, remove all 'barriers' to trade and allow American corporations to come in and skim off most of the profits? Also, the only law remaining on the statute books from Saddam's time is the one outlawing trade unions. Doesn't sound much like freedom to me.

Y'know UG....'freedom' and 'democracy' are two entirely different words. They are not synonymous. Democracy is not the sole province of the United States of America....by which I mean, your brand of democracy is exactly that, your brand. There are other kinds of democracy. What you attempted to drop onto Iraq at the business end of a bomb, was the American way: laissez faire economics, a lack of social safety nets and corporations more powerful than the government. There are, and have always been, other equally valid ways of organising society. Just because your country has spent the last fifty odd years trying to impose/encourage/mould other nations into that style of democracy does not make it the only, or the right, way.