And what of the Bush admin's intervention in the Salvadoran elections, where they backed Saca and ARENA and were openly hostile to the FMLN candidate who, to my knowledge, never wore a bandanna over his face or waved an AK-47? You gotta be either extremely disciplined mentally, naive or simply dense to believe the "democratic" rhetoric from this gang.

I've come to the conlusion that you can't export or impose democracy on others. It has to be a grassroots campaign and has to come from the people and their leaders themselves. Almost every sucessful democracy has been done this way.

I still think it's possible that foreign assistance can help local campaigns, I just have a hard time finding any examples of where it's actually been tried. Obviously this administration isn't interested - Salvador, Uzbekistan, Haiti, etc. etc. And the policies towards the Middle East undermine US credibility on reform so much that it makes any positive interference in the region nigh-impossible. I'd like to think US pressure might have had some impact on, say, the reforms made in Morocco, but we're still supporting its occupation over one the most democratic Muslim governments in the world.

You pick the battles you can win, and you don't shoot yourself in the foot for a mouse.

If we can disarm NK and keep Taiwan free of Chinese influence, throwing Hong Kong to the wolves is worth it. It's simply the way things are. You can't save em all.

Now if Bush started backing off from protecting SK or Taiwan ... that would be capitulation.

a sftp in embedded.