Nothing since Monica's blue dress has polarized the American public than the debate about our war with Iraq! Nothing!
And very few are lukewarm about it either.

Yes, Sadam is a problem, and it's true, he COULD give WMD to terrorist groups if he had them. This would be true of several other countries I can think of who have access to WMD and are not that friendly to us. It's a quagmire and reaches deep into the psyches of our own feelings of security and vulnerability, not only as individuals and a nation, but as a world community.
(P.S. Here's a little secret......Monica's blue dress stirred up the same deep feelings in our psyches and polarized us all the same.)

Nope, not an easy call.

I think Bush pushed everyone's buttons by declaring a "war" in the first place, and I've always spoken about about the inflammatory use of that word.
If he had gone quietly around to other countries and taken a consensus first and then planned "precision strikes", he might have had the support of the international community. However, it's hard to take back the words, or the meaning; and if one wants to talk HATE and FEAR, then just use the word "war".

I put the interesting information about GWB's "tour of duty" up because I thought it was worth the discussion and that others should have a look at how he handled his Vietnam years. I thought Colin Powell's statement was very telling:
"I am angry that so many of the sons of the powerful and well-placed... managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units...Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to their country." (Colin Powell’s autobiography, My American Journey, p. 148)

BTW Dan, thanks for encouraging me to try HTML again, for now I know some of the basics.
Do you think you might regret it?
;~)

And I know I goad people around here, sometimes in jest, and sometimes because I CAN.........but I wanted to say that even though I don't always agree with you or LarryJ or Tom, I at least respect you for your views.

And as for Ed........well, that's another story.