Lee is no more in the mainstream of my position than Splinx or Bowser is in the mainstream of yours. Heck, we right-wingers can have someone on the far end of the bell curve on this board too. ;)

You might note I have largely stayed out of this thread. I meant it about my head. But your input, as always, is invaluable, and you deserve extra points for taking on Ed, Lee, and SDAI almost single-handed.

I'm just as apprehensive about the future of this whole thing as everyone else is. But this could turn out well as easily as it could turn out badly. We have liberated nations before. We have also failed at it. "World Policeman" is new territory, and small-government conservatives are just as spooked by the concept of possible Empire as the liberals are. Yet maybe it could work. Would life for Iraqis be any worse being killed by inches over decades instead of being liberated in one painful effort? I don't live there. I don't have the right to answer that question. But how many Iraqi exiles are marching today?

I know what the future will be if Saddam is left alone. Or North Korea, for that matter. And I have yet to hear plausible alternatives to military action.

Far from genocide, from what I am hearing I fear it is more likely that we will lose a lot of extra American soldiers cutting the Iraqis extra slack...not bombing bridges, not attacking targets that may have too many civilians, not cutting off water and power. Americans worry about things like this. Who else in history has?

I can only speak for myself, but I trust Bush more than I trust Saddam. I believe that what Powell laid out at the U.N. was just a fraction of what they have. And even if you think Bush is an idiot, I trust Powell, Rice, and the others on his staff to make intelligent, well-informed decisions, at least as well as any human being can.

And I also know who is organizing the larger protests, and I trust Bush's motives more than I trust theirs.