If we could foresee who and where the next terrorist attack was going to come from, I would be willing to strike first to save one life, but the rub here is how do you know where the next attack is coming from. It seems we get a pretty steady stream of domestic nuts willing and able to commit atrocities for any and all reasons (McVeigh, the smile-face pipe bomber, Columbine, the nut who attacked a jewish school in L.A., and on and on), who do we strike first to stop them. Granted, if we had real, trustworthy intelligence that a country was planning any type of attack against this country or citizens abroad, or our allies, I'm all for stopping it cold with overwhelming force. Our intelligence gatherers and government as a whole do not necessarily imbue me with a sense of trust and competence. Most of us constantly lament how bad the government can screw things up, except when the government is doing something we agree with, we tend to give it our blind support (I'm guilt of this as well). From what I've been able to discern, there is little to no evidence to support the contention that Iraq was attempting to attack the US. Now I'm not saying Saddam is/was not insane and probably willing to hurt us Americans, I just believe the "charges" were trumped up to support the Bush administration agenda. Can you tell me how we figure out who is a real threat, worthy of conquering, and who we let slide? I know I'm rambling a bit, just sharing my opinion.