[Overpaid Slacker]

I simply don't share your view of money spent over there -- and your ramblings still do not get to whether anything we're doing or have done is "working" over there. MUCH less does it put forth any apology for a position that negotiation can/would/will -- or HAS EVER worked. But, talk is cheap, which is what appears to be most important to you.

Heck, let's kill NASA -- it costs billions; stop funding for the NEA (I'm for that one, actually); stop farm subsidies which actually hurt farmers (like Jefford's NE Dairy Compact); cut off all foreign aid; wrap up the UN (I'm really for ditching that bloated, corrupt, and very expensive, corpse of internationalism). Heck, let's de-militarize entirely. Weapons systems cost money, and lots of it. Then we'd HAVE to negotiate every situation b/c that'd be our ONLY option... kinda like Canada and Europe.

So when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. As long as that's a soft, fuzzy, internationalist (and cheap) hammer, who cares? Tra-la-la. La-la.

I have trouble following your 2nd para, but if you're convinced, ex ante that the elections, whatever the result, must by definition be a sham, please ... save the electrons. You're about conservation of resources. Stop wasting them with such transparent "Bush has GOT to be wrong, even before it's happened, it's a failure, it's WRONG. WAaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh" posts.

If our efforts to seed democracy, liberty and freedom "over there" just have to be failures b/c you disagree with why we've done them or just plain hate W, you don't really add much to a conversation about any of this.

GIs get killed in war -- you can't get over it. Most of us can accept that and move on. Which is not to say we like it, but we don't need to dwell on it, much less throw it out as an adolescent "end-all discussion" petulant moral trump card. This is why we have GIs -- an all volunteer force of them -- to exert the will of the US Government.

Yes, I watch Fox News, but I don't watch it much; I don't think TV is a particularly efficient medium for information. However, I am capable of separating advocacy journalism and editorializing from the "news." Which is to say I do not confuse Bill O'Reilly et. al. as "news"; a distinction many who love to pillory Fox seem genetically incapable of making.

It doesn't all "depend on what side you stand" for Chrissake! Who stole your moral compass and set you adrift in this unbounded ocean of relativism? There are massive successes in Iraq, and peace and returning prosperity throughout most of it. That you're ignorant of it is your own fault -- or choice. And such a choice is a moral one (perhaps calculated for petty political gain) that I don't excuse with some relativist pablum.

It's fine that you prefer to spend $80 billion at home; like Mondale, who wanted to scrap the Space Program b/c there was a hungry child out there. There are other things I could think to spend $80 billion on as well (how much would it cost just to pave over France?).

Coupla things -- $80 billion is a rounding error in our economy, and if we weren't going to be investing that money abroad in an unprecedented, well-intentioned attempt to liberate millions and change the world, then I'd rather it wasn't taken from us by our government in the first place.

But it's not like $80 billion is being set on fire, either. It's "spent" to "buy" resources and services, and the recipients of those payments will in turn spend that money, keeping others employed and paying taxes thereon.
Finally, the $80 billion comes out of federal coffers; federal aid aside (that distills down to next-to-nothing at the "street" level) your state and municipal governments are responsible for your streets and firefighters -- so lobby them to raise your taxes.

If you want these things, pay for them. But don't continue to use them as feeble spectres for what we "should" be doing. At least not here. Hmm.. a coupla extra potholes that the LOCALS should pay to fix vs. liberation of 26 million people, a strong chance for democracy and liberty for them, and helping to make the US and the world a safer place.

Who is it that's selfish here?

JP