This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2004, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
President Bush and Colin Powell have both recently said that they would accept the results of an Iraqi election, even if it means a hostile Shiite theocracy comes to power. In other words, the end for which our soldiers are fighting and dying is to be determined by foreign vote. So much for the president's vow never to leave our security up to foreign nations.
And whatever happened to Bush's “forward strategy of freedom"? Freedom does not mean letting a majority vote an entire nation into tyranny. That is simply mob rule, or what our founding fathers - warning against the dangers of unlimited democracy - termed “the tyranny of the majority.”
If this administration's plan sounds familiar, it should. That was the plan in Vietnam. Then we fought for the right of South Vietnam - to vote themselves into Communism if they chose. It is now official: Iraq is another Vietnam.
Andrew Vidrine
Riverton
