"Democracy" is code.

Editor,

Condoleezza Rice's use of the word "democracy" is code for the manifest destiny of multinational corporations to "modernize" -- meaning plunder -- the Moslem world.

Excising Hezbollah, who are an elected political entity within the democratic government of Lebanon, and pummeling the Palestinians' democratically elected Hamas government, are reminiscent of the wars waged by Andrew Jackson and Martin van Buren against the "Red Sticks" and other indigenous victims of 19th century American expansionism who dared to resist the theft of their land and the displacement of their tribes.

In particular, pitting Shia, Sunni, and other factions against one another in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Lebanon is exactly the tactic that was used to divide the Creek, Chickasaw, Shawnee, Cherokee, and other nations. Saving savages from themselves, used in those days, as now, was also the excuse for invading Mexico, the Phillipines, and Hawaii, not to mention innumerable shocking interventions, from when the Ottomans fell to now, in the Middle East.