"It strikes me that a lot of people here are the type that never stood up to bullies in school because "violence is bad"."

So now the people against the war are cowards who don't know about standing up to bullies? This is absurd.

As a child, I stood up to bullies that victomized me at every turn- usually verbally but, when absolutely necessary, with very deliberate and dispassionate use of violence. Yeah- the one or two times I got violent I took a lot of heat from the family, because they were pacifists (and I nearly killed one of the bullies)... But they also wern't there in my shoes at that time. My Grandpa knew what was up, though, bless his old soul.

Now let me also note, as an outspoken athiest liberal in a small oil town, I got smacked very hard by the school administration for pulverizing my enemy- even though I gave the kid a hundred opportunities to back down. so I know what its like not only to employ violence in self preservation/stand up to bullies, but also to employ violence when the 'authorities' are screaming how bad you are for doing so.

And yeah, my pacifist ways and outspoken adherance to my beliefs meant that I spent most of my childhood isolated and the 'victim' of some rather severe school-yard violence, while the school administration looked the other way.

So I know all about surviving bullies and standing up to them. I know all about how to employ violence to maximum effect. After one of the kids ended up in the hospital, nobody ever bothered me again.

I also know what its like to 'get over it', and thats what I suggest you do with your bullies in your past. International politics is NOT the schoolyard, no matter how cloying and tempting the metaphor is.

You see, Mark, the bullies only win when they make you do/think/act in ways that are in response to them or their violence- they win twice over when your thoughts and actions are self-defeating and incorrect.

Casting the current political situation as simply 'standing up to bullies on the schoolyard' covers over the complexities in this conflict. Unlike the school yard, the beaten Iraqis are not going to stand up, have a good cry, and go on with their lives. They, instead, get at best a burial by the people who loved them. At worse they rot forgotten in the sands while husbands/mothers/wives/fathers wait and weep about the unknown and lonely end of their loved ones.

Saddam was/is a bully, thats for sure, but that is the LEAST of what that monster was- but *WAR* is NOT the appropriate or only response to the perniciousness of the leader of a country. WAR is justified in many cases. That 'Leader such-and-such' is a bully is NOT one of the justifications in ANY moral system that holds the water of reason.

Now if you think I am condescending to you- you are right. You bought and paid for this condescention with your absurd ad-hoc *personal* generalization about the folks who are against this war.

You must come to understand, at some point, that people you disagree with just MIGHT have arrived at their position through rational process and NOT because they are personally flawed, un-intelligent, cowards, etc. I submit to you that you are behaving as a coward by fleeing to this position. You don't have to face the possibility of your error- only feel smug and superior at the presumed inadequacies of others.

Davin L.