We support many of those who oppress, murder and rape their people on scales matching (and in the past of our behavior, we supported those who exceeded) what was going on in Iraq.

What Saddam was doing to the Iraqis was terrible and unforgivable. However, it was not the justification we used for this war, and if you wish to use that as the justification now, retroactively, then you are left with a two-sided problem.

One, we look like complete hypocrites, slapping with one hand an example of who we pay with the other.

Two, its retoractively casting for another reason to have invaded Iraq. You are not dumb. You know what the public and open justification for this war was. We debated that justification on many occasions. We can't go back because it turned out our righteous wrath was simply false fire. We can't undo unjustified killing by finding any arbitrary reason, after the corpse is cold and buried, to justify the killing

Yes, yes, yes. I am sure you will claim now that it is inconsistent with our intimate knowledge of Saddam that he was not harbering terrorists and was not brewing WMD. But here you face another two-fold problem

One, isnt it a little odd that half a year after the commencement of military action, we are waiting for the proof of what we were told were the reasons we went to war? Namely: International Terrorist alliances and presence, AND WMD factories and programs. Isn't this in the least problematic for anyone who wants to see the government lead with at least a tip-of-the-hat to honesty and veracity in matters of war?

Two, isn't it a little wacko to justify the invasion and indefinite occupation of another country based upon threats to our country that are meerly consistent with the past behavior of that leader? More specifically: Can I make up anything about any nasty person leading any third-world country, claim this fiction to be consistent with past behavior and then claim self defense in invading that country, slaying over ten thousand human beings, and then occupying that country for an indefinite period?

I don't know what I find more disturbing. That we have leaders who took us down this path, or that months later, the leaders and the led are oblivious to the severe problems with our current position.

We are stuck in Iraq, and I pray we can leave Iraq something other than a bloody festering wretched pot of sectarian warfare.

I know you carry the faith, Tom. I see it as a faith born on the wings of rusty migs of decades age ruined by the sand that buried them.

But what I want to know is when Faith ends with you. When does this become a problem?

Davin L