Now, I know America's track record with "building democracies" is rather suspect, but if you at least agree with their intentions, at some point, the average Iraqi citizen will have a more proportionate amount of Iraq's wealth than they currently have. At the very least, humanitarian aid will go to the right people instead of being gobbled up by the Ba'ath party thugs.

Your first admission tends to take a lot of the steam out of the rest of this paragraph. Even in the face of the limitations of the ability to "build democracies", our campaign still seems suffused with optimism on this point. A year after our attack on the Taliban and OBL, even allowing for support from other countries in peacekeeping, how much of Afghanistan does the new, democratic government control? (the answer, I believe, is: Kabul). Iraq is not strictly Afghanistan on a warlord-by-warlord basis, but I am amazed at how optimistic we are as to what/who we have to work with (people like INC and SCIRI) in our bid to plunk down democracy.

So, the idea is that the poor, shoeless, malnourished, uneducated 8-year-old girl will be taken care of.

I'm not so optimistic. When the armed squabbling begins, when SCIRI demands that we leave, when the CNN viewing audience grows weary....how long will we stay? who will help us?

The way the current administration has chosen to attack this problem is by getting rid of Saddam's regime, and, love the plan or hate it, it's a plan. To execute that plan, we've been choosing to be extremely careful to avoid civilian deaths, and, in so doing, may be putting our own troops at a greater risk. Whereas the main reason civilians are at risk is because Iraqi leadership is *placing* them at risk, artificially.

That's an argument. Like someone said, though, we knew this.

The point being made was that we're trying to save their prisoners' lives, and as evidenced on the tape, they're doing quite the opposite.

The last thing I want to do is paint a rosy picture on past and (potential future) Iraqui military behavior, but I haven't seen anything *yet* on the Deutsch/AlJazeera footage that I was able to find so far that says "they are doing the opposite" WRT POWs. I don't get as incensed as Rumsfeld about interviewing POWs on camera (nor do I have his forlorn hope of keeping that footage from the public).

Looking at the facts, ambush does smack of propaganda, but in this case, it's not a bad assessment. Faking a surrender is simply unacceptable

Actually, this last case (assuming the accounts are correct) really does seems like it deserves the "ambush" description (beyond ambush), at least from the standpoint of hiding/falsifying intentions. My suspicions have been, though, that it has been used many more times (as in the case of the poor maintenance folks) where available facts didn't support the use of the term, as in this definition:

"Ambush - The act of lying in wait to attack by surprise. A sudden attack made from a concealed position. Those hiding in order to attack by surprise. The hiding place used for this, or A hidden peril or trap. "

The implication I draw from the liberal use of the term is one of sneakiness. As if *we* wouldn't/won't ambush lots of Iraquis if and when given the chance.

Oh, I guess that if the poor, but armed, folks from that maintenance outfit mistakenly drove up to an Iraqui defensive position, it could be that the only way this could *not* be considered an ambush would be if the Iraqui position was well exposed and clearly marked.

Oh, I am being cynical again. Not trusting the media these days.