doc searls asks Are these people(s) ready to govern themselves?
and i just want to throw up. surely the british once wondered: "is india ready to govern itself?" and came to the same wrong answers to which so many americans are coming today. my question is: if we decide the answer to doc's question is "no", are we ready to govern iraq? more to the point: who is better able to govern iraq: iraqis or americans? the longer we stay there, the more we'll convince ourselves that the answer is americans. but in truth it will always be iraqis who are best able to govern their own country, whether they're ready or not. readiness is not the key requirement of functional democracy. if it was, we'd call it "ready-cracy". the "demo-" means "by the people", and americans are not "the people" in iraq.