They get letters

From the Chicago Tribune

De Pere, Wis. -- No matter what hollow pronouncements President Bush makes about his march of democracy in the Middle East, one unfailing sign of democracy is that democratic governments respect the wishes of the governed. Almost none of the European countries in a free and fair plebiscite would approve of America's military adventure in Iraq. It is about time that the Italian "democracy" comes to its senses like Spain did and remove its troops from the military quagmire in Iraq.

A country like the U.S, which is jailing people (even its own citizens) for months and years at a time without charges and outsourcing these same prisoners to extraterritorial sites where torture and abuse of prisoners is practiced, need not be taken too seriously for its loud-mouthed crusade for democracy and human rights.

In their world of fantasy and Orwellian double talk, the neo-con jingoists and their political lackeys in the coalition of the willing just do not get it. Thinking people across the world have justly reminded President Bush of his empty rhetoric and non-democratic behaviors.

Incidentally, if it's Syria's duty to remove its military from Lebanon because of local assassinations and political chaos, so much more is it the duty of the coalition of the willing to get its military out of the incredibly worse chaotic situation that it has created in Iraq. - Terrence Lauerman