Uh, your (suggested) comparison to the situation in Iraq is a total nonsense. France did not invade CI, did not toppled the leadership to place a puppet in its place, and did not initially want to go.

France did go, however, because it is committed to the stability of Africa. It is willing to be replaced by a force made up of other African countries' soldiers.

If you want to criticise France on this, you can, but you would have to target it at its terrible mishandling of the decolonisation process, not what it is doing now

On the other hand, France sent in troops to Ivory Coast without securing the permission of the UN Security Council...and France has intervened in this fashion a lot more then the US has.

This is post-colonialism, and it's messy.

I was surprised the other day to see a friend of mine from CI walking down the hall at my university. We had graduated in the same year from the same Ph.D. program, and his plan was to go back to CI. I think he did his dissertation on nuclear proliferation, and worked briefly for the UN. He was apparently in the US for a short time when the violence broke out and has some sort of refugee status, but can't work here. He managed to get his family out though.

We sat down and had a long talk about Iraq, and naturally he was anti-Bush. When I suggested that we were there to establish Democracy he argued that freedom can't come at the point of a gun. Nonsense, I said, look at the American Revolution! How is CI going to get out of this mess w/o the imposition of order by force? He didn't really have a response. I gave him my email in case he needed help getting settled, but haven't heard from him. I think he found a job teaching in a small college in Florida.

Note: When trouble came he didn't go to France, though he speaks perfect French and was educated in the French system. I don't know what he's teaching those kids in Florida, but I hope it's that the US is on the right side of history. I don't really know. Perhaps his personal experience has taught him something he didn't learn in French schools.

Scott, your friend was wrong, but not speaking nonsense. In the American Revolution, the guns were in the hands of the un-free. France helped us to free ourselves from the Brits, but it was primarily our war, not France's. In Iraq, we didn't help the Iraqis to depose Hussein, we did it ourselves and are now asking for their help to remake their country in our image. We can't gift or impose freedom, they will have to build it for themselves.

A.C.#8,

Right, but totalitarianism is a stable equilibrium. I agree that people can't be free unless they internalize freedom as one of their values, but a societal environment conducive to freedom is also a requirement. The Iraqi people (for instance) will have to take the final step of internalizing the value of liberty themselves, but they couldn't have gotten to that point without the Coalition forces destroying Saddam's totalitarian equilibrium. We may not be able to gift or impose freedom, but we can provide some of the necessary preconditions.

"Hundreds of protestors, some armed with machetes and knives..."

Now see, that's what Katrina vanden Heuvel of the Nation is talking about, when she bemoans the loss of "full throated dissent" in this country. If only we could just have a little more civic spirit, like the C.I.-ians...

Al Maviva: When 'full throated dissent' begins in this country, it will be with rifles in hand not machetes, and its is both not to be desired and closer than many people imagine.