Why are we there?????? What are we achieving. What is the ultimate goal? and where are Osama & Saddaam while we're at it. We can shoot a missle down a chimney (granted it might be a school chimney) but we can find two well known international leaders?????  Yes I know people over there. Not family members so I cant fully empathize with them. The agenda has always been a stability point that we control in the middle east. At what cost we are willing to give to get that? This is the question. You and the choir up here can call this a fake war, Bush a liar, Chaney a goober,  Ashcroft a buffoom but it does not change the basic fact that the world has a problem with Terrorism and a hell of lot of these terrorist hate (like liberals) Americans. You can paint the reason why they hate us in any way you want to. They hate us because we are bullies, they hate us because we have a different religion, they hate us because we have more money...whatever. This is not fake and this is not a lie. Eventually if we continue to take the passive route (why are we in Iraq???) their like will start showing up on our soil and reeking havoc...this is a given. Now we have two choices...put our head in the sand and chant combaya or do something about it. I prefer the latter.

Pat, I'm all for stopping or minimizing terror. Personally, terror terrifies me. But clearly a credible fight against terror should be likened more to a large-scale international police investigation than a conventional war. To plausibly combat terror, the rational world requires an unprecedented level of international cooperation in intelligence collection and the like. This adminstration's policies, ignoring their glaring corruption and cronyism, have done more to hamper a fight against terror than if they'd done nothing at all. They have isolated the US from its allies, they have weakened the military, they have plundered the national treasury, they have done little or nothing to protect its ports, they have eviscerated the CIA, they have divided its citizens... It even looks as though we may be headed for a trade war with all our important economic allies. We are substantially less safe now than we were on 9/12. You can dismiss me as a kumbaya-singing nincompoop, but you'll need to be a little more convincing if you really want to make a case for your positions.

David