I think Fantasma is simply pointing out what's actually going on, Rapaire, rather than proposing a dictatorship or any other kind of rash action.

Why would she be arrogant enough to imagine she had a solution to the mess the US is presently in? Ha! ;-) I very much doubt that anyone here has a solution, but I bet some are arrogant enough to think they do.

I sure don't think I do. I expect the system to eventually fail...and then something new will take its place. It's too insane and corrupt not to eventually fail and be replaced by something else. But those are things that will happen sometime further down the road, probably after all of us here have ended our corporial lives and moved on to whatever comes next.

Fantasma is not proposing dictatorship. She is not proposing violent revolution, going into the hills with guns. She is simply talking about the situation, about what is actually going on, and I find myself in agreement with most of what she says about it.

You know what? I'm not here to change the world. Neither are you. It's beyond us to change the world, and it would be the height of egotism to think we could. I'm here to change myself...through experience of one sort or another and the way I deal with that experience. I want to observe the world, I want to understand what's going on around me, and THAT's why I am interested enough in politics to bother discussing it....but do I think I can change the world??? Ha! No sir, I do not think I can change it. I can only change myself.

The USA CANNOT bring peace to Iraq. There's no way. There will be much internal strife in Iraq regardless of what the USA does in the next few years, but there are better and worse things that could be done...the present course of "staying the course" being taken by Bush is one of the worst of the various likely choices that come to mind, and that's why I oppose it.

I also oppose it because it was, from the beginning, an illegal and unprovoked war of aggression, based on outright lies, done for hidden and unadmitted reasons. Those who launch such wars are international criminals and they deserve to lose their wars and be put on trial and imprisoned for probably the rest of their lives. Just like Hitler or Mussolini or Goering or Himmler (only I don't believe in capital punishment, I believe in imprisonment for people who are incorrigible). Same basic deal. Their armies should be made to leave the occupied lands, their military bases should be dismantled, their civilian contractors should be kicked out, and their political commanders and corporate bosses should be arrested for crimes against humanity, and tried in an international tribunal.

None of that is likely to happen while the USA remains militarily dominant in the world. ;-) Nor was it the least bit likely to happen to Hitler or Mussolini...while the Axis forces remained dominant on the battlefield. Same basic deal. He who has the most firepower controls the agenda.

No, only an utter and total military defeat or a total social collapse of the ruling system and its replacement by another can bring such criminals to justice. I don't expect to see that happen in my lifetime, because the present conditions in the world don't lead toward any such resolution. We have a one-power military dominance in the world right now, kind of like the Roman rule in the year 50 AD. And it will linger on for a bit before it falls and is replaced by something else. I give it at least a few decades yet before that is accomplished...2 or 3 at minimum probably.

Maybe longer.

I'll already be gone from here by then...just like I spread my wings and flew away into the bright sky. Ah. Now there's a sweet thought.