Stripermanofsteel,

Stick to your guns! There was nothing in your last post that you need to apologize for.


Phil Barton,

Well said!


Den,

Good Luck!!


Briefly, I wish to borrow an idea from Al Franken's book, "Lying Liars". Like him or not, this point is very true in my estimation. This is in response to all of you who try to falsely accuse people like me and Val of hating America, and accuse us of blaming America for the actions of the terrorists like OBL and those responsible for 9-11, none of whom had any ties to Iraq.


Republicans and those on the right love America like a four year old loves their Mommy. Mommy can do no wrong, and nobody better say anything bad about Mommy.

Democrats and those on the left love America like an adult loves another adult. They tend to be more realistic and objective, take the good with the bad, love them anyway just the same, and try to help them be the very best they can be, by offering constructive criticism.

This is not an exact quote, I am paraphrasing.

Lastly, I will not apologize for any of my lengthy posts in the past. These are complex issues, and as much as those of you on the right would like them to be simple, and easy to sum up, they are not.

We cannot intelligently or adequately discuss, analyze, or debate the complexities and the nuances of the world in which we live in three brief paragraphs which come down to nothing more than waving the flag and cheering for America. Anymore than the war on terrorism can be won by conquering and occupying countries absent a just cause or bona fide, relevant, link to terrorism.

The war in Iraq and the war on terrorism IS the pivotal issue in this election IMHO. The manner in which Bush has gone about both clearly illustrates his ineptness and incompetence. His war in Iraq has nothing to do with the war on terrorism, and we are NO safer today than we were before he ATTACKED Iraq. Someone said we did not attack anyone. YES, WE DID! WE ATTACKED IRAQ! That is a fact. Not a left fact, or a right fact, just a FACT!

I am not defending Hussein or Iraq. But we lacked a just cause for going to war there. Had we been more deliberate and exercised some restraint, we may very well have been able to avoid the need for war there, and still succeeded in neutralizing any potential threat from Hussein.

And for those of you who don't think Bush "WANTS" war, you are wrong. He has no compunction whatsoever about using our military to secure his power base and for his own political gain, the economic gain of his "base", or to further his fundamentalist christian agenda. Someone made a comment about Kerry's faith, or Clinton's; the distinction that must be recognized is in degrees. Just as recognizing the difference between OBL and the peaceful Muslim family that lives down the street from you, or lived in Baghdad before we blew up their house.

Recent estimates of civilian casualties in Iraq have ranged as high as 100,000. Were they all terrorists? Is that sort of bloodshed necessary or worthwhile in order to weed out Bin Laden and his followers? Are we going to systematically destroy country after country and kill hundreds of thousands more innocent, peaceful, Muslims and other citizens of Middle East countries in the name of our war on terrorism? Are we destined to become the very thing we are combating, the very thing we have denounced?

If Bush stays in office, that is exactly what we will have. And then WE will have become "terrorists" in our own right, and the innocents and the peaceful citizens of those lands will be no more; they will surely rise up against us in rightful outrage, and we will be less safe than we have ever been before.

George W. Bush once said, "Free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations do not attack each other. Free nations do not develop weapons of mass destruction."

Perhaps it is time that we once again became a FREE NATION. Free of the greedy, corrupt, self-serving, power hungry, war mongering mismanagement of Bush and his administration.

Paranoid? Sometimes, the people who are "paranoid" are the only ones who fully comprehend what is REALLY going on.