Bill brings up some good points. I am a republican, also a gulf war vet, and voted for bush both times. BUT, anyone with half a brain can see that there are some obvious issues first, with George W, and secondly with this war.
The problem is that alot of us cannot see further than our affiliations, for the same fear of being wrong that we attrib to the news media.
Let's take a simple, but relevent example. If I come on here or another chevy oriented board and start talking about the 67 GTA Mustang Cvt that we have, everyone wants to give us a hard time, some joking, some more serious! If I go to a mustang board where I have my 05Gt at, and show some pics of the 69 Hugger X66 car, they get up in arms. Why? Both sites are into cool cars. Both sites are into helping others with those cars. Let's face it, the mustang is the ONLY muscle car on the market and has been since 05. And it KILLS many of us to admit it, and the ford guys love it. Same point here.
Trust me, we will NEVER get ANY middle east country to be a successful democracy, at least in out lifetime. Bill brought up a good point with Lebanon, and I will add Palestine where they elected Hamas into control of parlament. That turned out real well, right? They will always be tribal. They only way we can force peace on <insert ME county here> will be as a brutal dictator. Period. Unless we are willing to do that, then we ought to get out. Saddam is gone, we rebuilt your schools and marshes (when we have not for New Orleans and the marsh land of Louisiana, but that's a different story), now govern yourselves or not!
Secondly, the world is full of tyrants: castro, chavez, warlords in Somalia. In fact, if we are strictly looking at human suffering, then Somalia is in much more trouble than Iraq, and that whole region is turning more and more to the muslim faith everyday.
We simply cannot force the world to be nice, and we can't buy their actions into civilized society. Furthermore, do we even have the right to demand that countries like Iraq be democratic, when we are more socialist than democratic as a country?
I am with Bill, if you are going to attack this country, we need to strike, hard and fast. Even Nukes should be an option. It works for Israel. They target the leaders, in their homes, with their children. Cold, yes. Hard, yes. But it is the only thing they understand.
Do you think that we would ever as a country, in this day and age, even consider an atomic bomb like Heroshima? I really don't think we have it in us.
Finally, before you PM me about how I am a republican turncoat, remember how you felt when the democrats defended Bill Clinton no matter what, how stupid they looked? That's how you look as a republican when you defend George Bush when he is wrong. The only winners in his administration is Big Business.
So, love the chevy guy that drives a mustang, and admit the new camaro looks like crap.
Group Hug...............
Rich