Regarding the situation in Iraq:

A couple of metaphores apply here: "When you take a mouthfull of scalding hot coffee; anything you do next is wrong" and "we are up to our behinds in alligators when our original intent was to drain the swamp". Our president is the Commander-in-Chief of the military - that means he should either completely understand all aspects of military operations or be able to hire those who do (and be the best manager in the country). Our current president has shown clearly that he has none of these skills in sufficient quality to be president. The American people who voted for him are responsible along with him - and the rest of us are along for the ride. Democracy is the "tyranny of the majority" - deal with it - change the electoral college and fix the voting process so each persons vote really counts, then we can re-elect Al Gore.

Although we should have the right to defend ourselves, do we have the right to retaliate against an enemy before we are 100 percent sure who they are? If we are going to defend ourselves we need to do so solidly and with good judgement. As anyone (our current president excluded) who has experienced first hand the death, destruction, and residual hatred that war brings can tell you; there are no winners in a war, only loosers and those who get to write the history books about the war. Read your history books, including those not written by the "winners" of the wars if you want the truth. Iraq and Iran are in an area of ancient civilizations (where we got most of our math and Thomas Jefferson got many of his ideas for government and human rights from Cyrus the Great - read your history books before you bash me on this one) and are "countries" whose boundries and governments have been created (imposed) by Western European civilization in the last 100 years and have very little to do with the Iranian or Iraqi populations. If the government of Iraq was responsible for attacks on the U.S. then we have ourselves to blame because we (the U.S.) installed that government. Again, read your history books. There are many pictures of a smiling Rummy shaking hands with Saddam in the 80's. These are truths. You can bash me all you like I don't care. The sooner we deal with the truth of these matters the better off we will all be.

It is my belief that (before we invaded) most Iraqi people had as much dislike for radical so-called "muslims" as we do for radical right wing so-called "christians". "Any religion that advocates the killing of other human beings is most certainly evil". The radicals on both sides accuse the others of that which is not true to perpetuate their own selfish purposes that have nothing to do with their religion at all - and thus we have war. What a waste. Sad.