I don't really know where I'm coming from either, Don, except that maybe Bush was just as right before the first election that we shouldn't engage in "nation-building," as he is wrong for "his" doctrine of preemptive war.

If the vast majority of the population would prefer a theocracy (as in Afghanistan, more so than Iraq), it seems that "promoting democracy" (especially by force!) is like pissing in the wind.

I've been surprised to read in the Indian press that the majority there seem to approve of the Afghanistan operations, as much as they disapprove of the Iraq fiasco. But beyond cleaning out the rat's nest of training camps, can nothing further be accomplished? (I asume they approve of the sweeping up operations - it can't be over the "progress" made in (shall we call it) nation-building.)

I think Amos is right that the Bush people must have thought, to the extent they think at all, that the availablity of democratic mechanisms would blossom over theocratic predelictions, when it just ain't that way.

I'm just generally bummed about the state of affairs and the prospects for the middle-term future.