KG: It comes down to you say this and I say that...then you counter with this and I counter with that. 

DB: No, the facts, according to everyone credible, lead one to the inescapable understanding that a group in the White House manipulated intelligence reports with the express purpose of making a case for invasion, down to accepting patently obvious forgeries, if those forgeries helped their case. It's also a fact that by diverting the attention of the US military and intelligence community away from AlQaeda, Osama Bin Laden, the Saudis, the ISI, and the Taliban towards Iraq that this country was made substantially more at risk. It's also a fact that without serious international cooperation in neutralizing terror organizations that our present intelligence apparatus is not up to snuff. We need language experts, informers, moles, credible analysts, and the like, and we don't have anywhere near enough on our own. Even the radically partisan Bushite Porter Goss, who is probably going to be the next (hopefully quite temporary) Director of Central Intelligence went on public record in Congressional testimony stating that it will take a minimum of five years of hard work to even begin to develop those kinds of assets on our own. The sympathy of the international community that we had on Sep 12, 2001 vanished with our Iraq invasion. We further damaged our relationship with intelligence preofessionals worldwide when we burned, first CIA deep-cover operative Valerie Plame and her network, and then, amazingly, burned our only Al Qaeda mole. Nobody trusts us anymore, not Interpol, not MI 6, not the Surete, not the Japanese, not the Russiians, not the Poles or the Spanish or the Italians... nobody. If any foreign intelligence agency shares their assets with us, they know that we may just whimsically expose them, for short term political gain. Further, it's not a matter of argument that our economy has been severely weakened in the last three years, which can be easily understood by merely looking at the deficit.

KG: We all know the arguments and where they lead and nobody is changing anyone's mind.  At some point it sort of becomes futile. 

DB: It's only futile if you continue to refuse to face the facts. Where's Ahmed Chalabi? Why have the Taliban been allowed to regroup? Why are the Pakistanis allowed to get away with selling nuclear materiel to terrorists? Why are the Saudis given such a free rein? Why havent we dealt better with Kim Jong Il? Why are our ports unsecured? Why are our first responders inadequately funded? Why are we allowing the insurgents in Fallujah and Sadr City, et al, 60 days, until after our election, to fortify, set booby traps, and etc... Why can't you change your mind, and recognise that, Bush's tough-guy talk aside, the policies of the last three years have been amateurish, incompetent, and ultimately devastating to our national security? It is indisputable. This administration has proven itself wilfully incompetent in every area relating to national security, and even usual party loyalists among the Republicans agree.

I