The reasons for war would have been something like the following:

Is Saddam a friendly government? No.

Is he violent towards us? Yes.

Who else is he violent to? All but a minority of Sunnis in his own country.

What does that include? gassing Kurds, displacing familis based on ethnicity. Causeing mass graves, killing those who have oppinions opposed to his. Ethnic cleansing. . Also it is a humanitarian nightmare

Who is he friends with? Syria, and he regularly funds suicide bombers in Palestine, possibly Al Quadia. . . Even if he does not now, he could in the future.

Does he have armaments that he could use against us effectively or that he could sell to others who would? Yes, a previous administration sold them to him. And minus that of what he has used on Iran and his own people, he has yet to account for whats left over, so we can assume he still does.

He also persued super weapons such as a super gun, and nuclear program.. . and extending the ranges of scud missiles.

hmmmm. . .

what does the region look like? Its a mess. No democracies save for Israel, Iran is under preassure from its younger generation for democratic like freedon, Saudi Government is under preassure from its citizens for being hyper corrupt, Syria is not friendly towards us, and Turkey cannot be trusted. Kuwait is a rather dubious ally.

Could re region benefit form a democracy? Definitly.

Could we benefit in the future from a presence in Iraq? Yes, good relations with it could help us when it come sot oil and strategic positioning for any future conflicts.

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Okay, well there you have it, why not go in?

But like I've said time and time again, you can't sit around and argue this on national television, its all over the map. You need to pick a reason, and stick to it and drum it into people heads. Just like every issue when it comes time to elect a candidate. They don't ever argue the finer points of anything in a presidential debate, instead its an excercise in drilling one simple thought into peoples heads. I don't like this, but it happens with every single issue any candidate ever presents to us. I only fault Bush with picking the worng issue and doing what every one else does with respect to this (picking one issue, personally I think the american people can handle much more, but no one in politics seems to think so). . .

But to actually beleive that that 'one' reason was the only one, is naive. Frankly I don't think there are so many naive people out there. I suspect half the people saying they feel 'betrayed' and 'fooled' never beleived him to begin with and are only acting like they did now so they can act indignated.

-Justin Kelly

Regards,
-Justin Kelly