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As far as theocracies go, this nation is pretty light, compared to Iran or a few other countries. Yes there are things within our society that could stand to be changed, but really it's not as huge a problem as you make it seem.

If the WMD's were such a big lie, then how come we were able to convince people before we even went to war that they had them? We got intelligence from multiple countries around the world saying that Hussein was up to no good with NBC weaponry. After the Gulf War we were allowed to inspect Iraq and found that it had multiple facilities for producing biological and nuclear weapons, and they were quite advanced to boot. Are you telling me that after that we had no reason to suspect Hussein of producing them still? Also, the Gulf War was "ended" with a cease-fire, not an actual surrender on Iraq's part. Hussein was required to meet certain standards to keep the cease-fire in effect. He didn't. Because of that, the war was essentially back on.

I don't think you know how to fight a war. It takes sacrifice, and lots of it. You think thousands of our own dead is bad? Please. With that kind of mentality there's no way in hell we would've won World War 2. We would've given up when the German counterattack in the winter of '44 happened. We lost tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of men due to that attack. Did we say, "Oh no, we've lost too many we ahve to give up!"? No we didn't, we kept fighting. More manpower is needed, but you know how we're gonna get that? A draft! Sure, the modern highly-mobile force is an effective fighting machine, but it can't occupy countries as well as the large standing army of the Cold War era. We know how to deal with country occupation, we have experience with Germany, Japan, and the Philippines. The losses in this conflict are comparitively light, if not scant as opposed to many war of the past.

Yes there are countries with the same problems of tyrranical dictatorships, namely Sudan and the Darfur region in particular. However, Sudan does not have a connection with the War on Terror or Islamic Extremism. While it'd be a nice gesture to remove al-Bashir from power and give the people a chance to run the government themselves, there isn't much in it for us other than a pat on the back from other countries saying "Thanks for doing something that we'd do ourselves but don't see as being worth it to sacrifice the lives of our citizens for." Islamic Extremism became our problem when they decided to hijack some airplanes and fly them into buildings with the intent of killing innocent civilians. And letting our guard down like we did then is a stupid mistake. It happened at the 1972 Munich Olympics because people thought it was going to be a "peaceful" event. None of the guards were armed, and didn't even have patrols. Look what happened. So much for peace and freedom when you can't ensure the lives of the people who you want it to be there for. So much for freedom and privacy in exchange for security being BS. And you've yet to show me a specific case where someone's rights were violated.

And since when does cancer only occur in Westernized societies? You make it sound as if chemicals and gas are the main cause of cancer, which then sounds like we've only had cancer for as long as we've been using chemicals, but cancer has been around for much longer than that. I recommend you provide some evidence before throwing out such a fact.

And no, who wins a war does essentially prove who's right, because the winner gets to write the history books the way they want to, thus teaching people that they won because they believed in such-and-such, and for that they were right. If Germany and the rest of the Axis powers had won World War 2, we wouldn't have been right for standing against the Third Reich, Hitler would have been the man with the right idea.

Now, I'm no politicion, but I do know this. If we "cut and run" like some people say we should that will cause a big problem for the US. If we do leave, Iran will come in and take over. At first it may not be bad for us, but it will be harder to win this war. Oh and by the way, for those of you who think Bush is stupid for starting this war, your not intelligent. Bush can't just declare war, he has to run it through the congress.

People were scared. Scared people are very easy to use and manipulate. Bush was able to pass whatever he wanted once 9/11 happened. He pushed bills through that totally by-passed the bill of rights (the main cornerstone of people's rights in the US) so that he and his people could do whatever they wanted. People wanted to do anything to feel safe again. Since the terrorists were from Afghanistan, they started sending secret service and a few hundred troops in. Then they cut back. more and more. There were leads, but the US was partnered with the people they lead to. Oil tycoons, important families in the middle east, etc. So someone in the executive branch decided to take all that fear, all that hate, all that power and drive it into something they could make a difference in; Iraq.

There are many theories for why we went into Iraq, but like George Bush Sr.'s memoir stated, there was no way out. Money and troops started to drain into that place like a whirlpool in the Bermuda Triangle. People died, a lot from my home town, and time passed. People got less scared. They started to wonder why this was happening. They began to ask questions. But it was too late for the most part. The Executive Branch had gained too much power to stop. The Legislative was eating out of their hands. People had stopped caring about the way their country was run. They still don't totally want to see what's happening.

I got most of this information from reading the newspaper and watching a show on PBS at two in the morning. The PBS show said it was the second and last time they were showing the special on what happened in Afghanistan because the government was forcing them to pull it. They had names and dates and information. There was no reason other than personal that we went from Afghanistan to Iraq. There was no reason that we went after Saddam Hussein. A twelve year old can tell like a bad episode of Columbo that the government is lying. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like we'll read the whole truth until it's down in our children's history books.

I believe we need to keep terror cells under control, if we pull out of iraq all thats gonna happen is the taliban recuperating. i don't completly agree with this war but i feel we need to keep it going, all these lies going around are clouding the truth that these soilders are trying to save these dying people in iraq. i don't know where this "Blood For Oil" nonsense came from but we are making progress, we are taking out the terror cells we are saving alot of people, we even captured saddam, pulling out of iraq in my oppinion would be the dumbest move for america to do, it will only give the taliban the idea that we are defeated and will also encourage more terror against us.

we can't win the war on terror cause you can't fight ideas with guns