Every time I hear someone use the word "liberation" with regard to what we are doing in Iraq it drives me crazy. We aren't liberating the country, or the people. We aren't spreading democracy by other means. What we are doing is conquering Iraq. We are subjugating the territory, the military, government and people by force of arms -- we are then going to impose our will on the conquered. Maybe we are doing it for good, moral and noble reasons. But to pretend that this war is not an invasion with the express purpose of creating a regime friendly to the United States is to distort the language.


Or perhaps Bush is liberating the Iraqi people -- after all, one definition (from the OED) is "ironically, to subject to a new tyranny."