I think that one of the problems with the United States government (not speaking specifically of the Bush administration, but most U.S. administrations to one degree or another since the end of World War II) trying to "democratize" or teach democracy to other countries, such as Iraq or any one else for that matter, is the U.S. government's failure to understand the true nature of democracy. Especially now, when true democracy is inimical to it's goals, both foreign and domestic.

My Merriam-Webster dictionary defines democracy as

1 a : government by the people; especially: rule of the majority b : a government in which the supreme power if vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections

2 : a political unit that has a democratic government

3 : capitalized : the principles and policies of the Democratic party of the U.S.

4 : the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority

5 : the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges

A more thorough and extensive understanding of democracy would involve the study of various philosophical arguments going back as far as ancient Greece, if not before, and following the arguments through various philosophers since then. But all the understanding that most people have of democracy is that "we have free elections, we vote, and then everything is supposed to come out right." But simply because we can choose our leaders and representatives (theoretically, barring hanging chads and other hanky-panky) doesn't mean our leaders and representatives are necessarily going to act in our best interests or in the best interests of the country as a whole. All too often (sometimes, it seems, always) they act for the benefit of special interests. If more Americans had a less parochial view, they would see that there are other countries who do this (act in the best interests of their citizens and their country as a whole) far better than we do.

Without going into a line-by-line analysis of the dictionary definition and comparing that with what actually goes on in this country (you can do that perfectly well for yourself), let me just say that democracy does not mean "making the the world safe for American-based multi-national corporations."

A government which consists of a melding of governmental power with corporate interests is not a democracy, even if it does have free elections. There is another word for that kind of government, but it's a word people don't like to hear.

Before we arrogate to ourselves the incredibly smug task of teaching the rest of the world true democracy, I think we need to clean up our own house first.

Don Firth