When the President and the rest of the elected officials start taking advice from you instead of our Intelligence community I fear we may be in grave danger Steve. What you or I think about Iraq is completely inconsequential. The fact of the matter is neither you nor I know what Saddam is capable of nor do we know what weapons of mass destruction he may or may not harbor. I do however feel confident that the intelligence agencies in this country know EXACTLY what Iraq is capable of. It's funny that so many people look at the declaration of a war as being arrogant when the fact that we can sit here grossly uninformed of the countless reports that sit atop the desks of this country's top leaders desks and spout off our rhetoric and believe that it's not.

You also made a blanket statement about the things we have been doing in Iraq and the Middle East and that we deserved this? Can you explain to me what we did aside from stopping an oppressive dictator from expanding his empire? Also just because terrorism might be inevitable doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to stand against it in every way possible. That’s like saying, “ well I’m going to die anyway so I might as well just kill myself or jump off a bridge.” You don’t do that you choose to live. You choose to make the most of your life in the best way you know how even though you know you will eventually die.

On a side note I think it has been fairly well established that the UN is a body committed to diplomacy, however diplomats by nature are self-serving, in most cases they are looking out for the needs and wants of their countries not the world as a whole. This can be seen all throughout history since its inception. If it doesn’t affect them they just talk about it a lot while the conflict continues. Why should they bring their country under fire when they will come out unscathed? All you need to look at within the past 10 years to see that is the Serbian people's genocide of the Albanians, Croats, Muslims, and Christians of Kosovo after the death of Tito. The UN refused to commit forces to the area instead wanting them to resolve the conflict on their own. In the meantime Slobadon Milosevich came into power and slaughtered and expelled thousands of people in the name of religious cleansing. It wasn't until US marines stepped in and stopped them from killing each other did the UN do anything (sent in by former President Clinton, just in case any of this has to do with your particular political preference), and even then they sent minimal forces. Then we had to promise not to try those who did the killing for war crimes because it was the only diplomatic way to solve the problem. Only after a bitter struggle by the people of the country are some of the top leaders being tried now.

I'll halt from any further commenting you are obviously allowed to your opinion (however when you say things like we deserve 9/11 don't be surprised when people call you bigoted or a "traitor”), there are just some things that that I feel more people should consider before making blanket "peace is the answer" statement. The world is much more complicated than that. If it was an ideal world peace would be the answer (then again I guess you could say socialism would be perfect as well if things always worked out perfectly), but remember that all parties would have to throw aside their differences and be committed to one cause, that being peace and looking out for the whole before one self. While I am not a practitioner of complete selfishness I do believe that everyone inherently looks out for his or her best interests. I would love to believe that we can all just get along and that there can be peace, but I am also a realist in that I know this to be impossible. Civil war genocide and countless other atrocities run rampant everywhere else in the world and have all throughout history including the present. We have lived a relatively sheltered life free from this strife and in many ways it has disillusioned us. We believe that every one is a rational thinking people and that they will take the diplomatic way out. They hate us for no good reason and they will attack us at some point whether we attack them now or not. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but they will attack us again. The funny thing is Iraq responded this morning and said they’re going to “make the wives and mother’s of those who attack them cry” not just in their country but also around the world. This was again followed by we have no weapons of mass destruction or biological weapons. If they don’t have weapons of mass destruction then do they plan to achieve any of this?

I was debating on whether or not to allow comments on the entry. Not because I feared opposition, but because I was afraid the same arguments would come up over and over again. But I’m glad that you took the time to present your argument, which is presented more elaborately than I expected from anyone.

I know I don’t have any of the facts about Iraq, but I am also not announcing that I have have them either. I get it from the news just like you. But that is really not the point of the entry. It might sound odd but I am not upset about going to war with Iraq because I believe in world peace. What I am upset about is this countries push to brainwash everyone into one mindset on the issue.

You talk about me making blanket statements, but look at Bush during his speech; saying that “all of America” is behind him is a true blanket statement. I’m surely not behind him, and I would never want anyone to think otherwise. In fact, there is a strong minority in this country that finds statements like those rather offensive.

But that is about it, really. I’m not trying to provide facts; all I’m trying to disprove is my own opinion. If this war is so worthy I want to know why I don’t see that. I have about a million questions I want answers to. I want to know the difference between the words “pre-emptive” and “attack”. I want to know who is next after Iraq. I want to know the difference between “super power” and “super control”. I want to know how long this ideology America is adopting will last before the world stands up against us. I want to know if this is the mark of the downfall of America’s power.

As I said, I’m scared. Not because I hate this country, but because I love it. I want to live in a country that is free and peaceful. But to see that our foreign policy is the complete opposite of that extremely worries me. It worries me because 9/11 made me realize that foreign policy could come back and kill me. Pre-9/11 it was a pretty self-centered policy. Now we are adopting the most extremely self-centered policy that is possible. How will that help anything?

Please convince me that what we are doing is not a global dictatorship, maybe then I wouldn’t be so scared.