More accurately,

"...Johnson died...so that democracy might be brought to the Middle East, a democratization which is the lynchpin in the unrelenting battle against terrorism that is targeting America and her citizens around the world."

(And anyone else who care to notice.)

Though such "nuances" may well escape the good professor. In fact, for him and people like him, it is essential that the point be utterly ignored.

Which is a shame, because he could have just as much fun ridiculing it, even if others might not swallow his ridicule as readily.

Nice, Paul. What a mendacious rant. This is liberal racism at its best/worst. Tell the proud black soldier's family it was all a scam and that he died in vain and then kiss off the rest of the world as too savage to handle democracy. All the while proclaiming universal brotherhood.

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

John Stuart Mill

This bothers me a lot.

I believe the chance that western Asia will ever experience -- or even want to experience -- democracy or any other sort of popular self-government to be close to nil.

Nevertheless, we won't know till we try.

The bones of how many soldiers is that worth? None, if I'm right in my prediction.

I can still support the human cost of the prresent policy, though I consider it badly flawed, on the grounds of fighting terrorists and their support system.

But it's a fine line between giving self-government a chance and just wiping out the problem.

Oxford held a debate during the latter part of the Vietnam War in which the question proposed was: Is there anything worth dying for?

At the end of the debate, it was ruled that the side arguing that nothing was worth dying for was the winner. Professor Campos follows on in their footsteps...

"But it's a fine line between giving self-government a chance and just wiping out the problem."

But, in truth, the alternative to the Middle East fixing itself (i.e., giving up terorism) is that we will HAVE to wipe out that problem once and for all.

For anyone who has been paying attention these last few months, the bad guys in the M.E. have been showing quite clearly that they WILL NOT STOP. Once the West comes to the conclusion that the terrorists will continue to attack/bomb/kill us as long as they draw breath--then we have no alternative other than to kill them.

Please take this as a compliment, but sometimes I wonder what it takes to convince Americans they have completed a job.

You won the war. Saddam is gone. Israel is more secure. The UN has been checked. Terrorism has been partially contained. The rogue states are nervous and on notice. The world and my children are safer.

All the above is true whether democracy takes hold in Iraq or not. Thank you, Mr. Johnson, thank you very much.