He answered Bud: "Yes, I was thoroughly brainwashed by Communism in China, since I have always strived to be the best student that I could be and tried to remember everything the teacher told me. I was a fool and believed everything I heard with only doubts that the outside world would probably be different and better. I didn't know how different and better it would be and when I saw the outside world, its wonders far exceeded my expectations.

I was willing to be thoroughly brainwashed again and worked hard to scrub every wrinkle of my brain surface when drips of 'democracy', 'freedom', 'Western Philosophy', 'American / European history' or any of that good stuff trickled in. When I now talk to anyone with association with China, they invariably tell me that I am brainwashed some even go as far as saying I am 'white washed'. When I defended US as a country with many polite people, many Canadians said I was 'brain washed'.

But let me tell you the surprising thing that I have found about democracy after spending half of my life living under it: it is another form of government that can fool its citizens just as easily and as diligently as any other forms of non-democratic government. If you read messages posted on the Internet by today's young Americans, it is not unusual to see posts such as: "Why are people in the world still resisting democracy", or "Chinese people, why don't you raise arms and overthrow your government"?

When Senate Robert Bird said "today I weep for America" in 2003, do you think all the other members of the Senate, who approved of going to war against Iraq, were lying or speaking the truth? When most of the respectable Senators said they believed America was under the threat of the tiny and far away country of Iraq, I believe they spoke the truth and the only explanation remains was they were all brainwashed and inadvertently brainwashed the American people. Remember George W. Bush got elected to the office for a second term with a better winning margin than his first term. If you care to check all the surveys conducted after the Iraqi war broke out, majority of the American people still consistently believed Iraq was a threat to United States under Saddam Hussein. Saddam must have felt like an innocent by standard that happened to stand on the wrong side of the street and got shot in this War on Terror. If the War on Terror were really justified to happen in Iraq, what are the answers to the following three questions? "Is Osama Bin Laden captured or killed?", "Does Al-Qaeda have any connection with Saddam Hussein?" "Where are weapons of mass destructions in Iraq?"

No, Osama is not killed or captured but War in Iraq is getting 80% of the attentions and coverage of War on Terror. Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda or Osama Bin Laden never could get along therefore had no connections. As to the third question, even if Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, America has 10,000 nuclear war heads without counting chemical or biological weapons. Was there really such a threat to a man with 10,000 shotguns when another was just about to have one?
"
Bud finally could cut in: "One shotgun could still be fatal. It could kill many American lives." "But Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, and even if it did, it was not likely they would give it to Al-Qaeda if they had only made a few. How did a war aiming at Al-Qaeda went into Iraq?"

Bud took out another defense commonly employed by conservative Americans: "Well, the war went to Iraq because United States needed to find a battle ground to fight those terrorists from the Middle East. We sure as hell would not want to fight the war on the American soil".

David recalled a phrase from an Indian professor he once had and said: "When elephants fight, ants get trampled upon. How many Iraq civilians get killed in order for Americans to shoot dead one terrorist? Does any one care? If the conservative great Americans think this way, I don't know how they would ever achieve the lofty goals president Bush set for the objective of the Iraq war, which was to spread democracy in the Middle East. This 'fighting on other people's soil' idea has lowered Americans to the same level as any imperialists of the last century. For people living in the northeast of China, they would always say '老毛子最坏，小毛子贼坏' for the Russo-Japanese war fought on their soil. They would not even buy Japanese car or electronics, let alone buying democracy from Japan or Russia".

Bud wanted to change the focus of the discussion and said: "you just don't like the war do you? Anything about the war was wrong, wasn't it?"
David: "Since you are from a military family, I will tell you what I think this war means to military family. It will really be even sadder for soldiers who are sent into this war. When Vietnam War started, there were not as many anti-war protests in America, Canada, Australia, and UK. All indications are, this war would be more difficult to clean up than the Vietnam War and one day, soldiers would ask themselves: 'what did we fight for'? Vietnam war was about defending against the spread of communism, and even that didn't work out. Now what a brilliant idea, 'spread demorcracy by overthrowing a government'? Why didn't Mohandas Ghandi of India think about that? Sorry Mr. Ghandi, I shouldn't even mention your name in such a context.

The fact that Iraqi War even happened demonstrated how American people were brainwashed when majority of the outside world could see this was a war that was not winnable, with the objective being spreading democracy.

In America, the brainwashes were usually done by the world's best engineered and manufactured "super turbo detergent", which sometimes accompanied by songs such as "I am proud to be an American; at least I know I am free". Almost all Americans believe they are free and their media is free and uncensored. At least, they would believe their media, if possible to be swayed by bias and bigger money, were still not as much as in other countries. Brainwashing ideas coming out of such washing machine has another added peril of never being suspected as being brainwash. I heard many co-workers and conservative talk show hosts and callers talked about America always "help the world". While America did help the world often, it is very unnatural to hear soldiers talking about how they are trying to help the Iraqi people and those people did not want to be helped. People brainwashed by democracy simply can not understand there are other people in this world who would not want democracy, or at least, do not treasure democracy as much as Americans.

It is probably embarrassing for a Chinese born Canadian citizen to remind you this, do you remember what George Washington said in the farewell speech about preserving the unity of the nation? Do you remember what Civil War was all about and why Abraham Lincoln was regarded as the best President in the history of the United States of America? George Washington vigorously warned against danger of party by geographic regions and pleaded all Americans to protect the unity of the country with utmost pride and "jealous anxiety". Abraham Lincoln, simple brushed aside the constitution and democracy to force the Southern states rejoining the union. Emancipation of the Negro slaves was a clever, convenient and justifiable reason later added to the war objectives more than a year after the war started. Emancipation of slaves was against democratic principles also since Lincoln legally could not free the slaves that the North did not have authority over if he was a stickler to the principles of democracy -- government based on consent of the governed.