Tom, they were already coming after us prior to this war and any Mideastern expert will now tell you those numbers have multiplied. Can we kill them all? Do you really believe this? What if you do kill all the present insurgents and terrorists? Aren't their sons, uncles, cousins, daughters, etc. going to be awfully upset about us doing in their friend and relative and, by the way, all those innocents that just happened to be caught up in the bomb blast? Do you think they're just going to sit back and forgive us?

It would sure seem to me that leaving Iraq soon would create a whole lot less of these future terrorists. There were a whole lot of Vietnamese that probably had blood in their eyes during that conflict that, had they had a wealthy benefactor like Bin Laden prodding them on, would've laid some serious hurt on us as well.

There are horrible people in the Mideast but here's the reality Tom. You can't do away with all of them. The only ones that stand a chance of throttling those misfits are the people of the region. There have been peaceful and productive times in Mideastern history but guess what. Those times were brought to an end by wonderful "moral" endeavors like the Crusades.

You just blow me away with your steadfastness here in spite of all the boneheaded moves we've made in the past few years. I can only explain it with a couple of possibilities. First, it's some holy war for you where it's this black and white, good and evil thing that has no grey areas, one where all things are preordained by some cosmic creature that wants the world in continual bloodshed. The other option is that you're some sort of paid plant by the current administration. I'd actually prefer the second option since it would mean there's actually some possibility you really don't believe everything you write.

Art