I normally have a lot of respect for your views, but this is ridiculous. Unanimity of opinion would only further endanger us by giving Bush the impression that he has our support to repeat his disasterous decisions.

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"George W. Bush surrounds himself with smart people the way a hole surrounds itself with a donut." —Dennis Miller

It's all connected. All the problems and fighting in the Middle East is connected to the Palestinian/Israel conflict......Iraq....and extreme Islamics who refuse to tolerate anyone that does not believe as they do. Haven't you ever read any of bin Laden's rants and speechs where he condemns the U.S. over both? And I'm talking about his speeches since the mid-1990's. Then there is the little matter of an Iraqi intelligence officer being involved in the 1993 WTC attack...and his connections with some of the same al Qaeda players that went on to pull off 9/11. Infidels and Jews: according to these extremist terrorist....both are non-believers and must be destroyed. AND anyone.....even other Muslims.....who support them or work with them.

Just yesterday, Marines found and saved 4 Iraqi citizens who were being tortured by terrorists. We know they were terrorists because they also found a training manual where it told of how cutting the necks of infidels is allowed.

Then there is the little matter of bin Laden's 1998 indictment by the Clinton administration and the U.S. which spoke of their proof of connections and links between al Qaeda and Iraq.....and the plant we bombed in the Sudan in 1998. As well as testimony about that from former Sec of Defense William Cohen and former CIA Director George Tenet.

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"This is a time for a national imperative not to fail in Iraq." Condoleeza Rice, January 11, 2007

Saddam Hussein was secular.

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"Nothing is true. Everything is permitted." - Hassan-i-Saba

Which "official" would that be?

Your writing is so vague that it is impossible to refute it. I guess that is why you make it vague.

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"George W. Bush surrounds himself with smart people the way a hole surrounds itself with a donut." —Dennis Miller

A couple of thoughts. Not new, but worth repeating:

1. The people gunning for us in Iraq are mostly low-level jihadists, not the sort of dedicated terrorists that launch attacks like 9/11. By being in Iraq, we have both stimulated terrorist recruiting and put American troops within reach of thousands of people who otherwise would never have been able to act on their anti-U.S. sentiment.

I was just reading this morning that the U.S. military is finding that killing Iraqi insurgents can be counterproductive, because the dead insurgent's tribal relatives get mad about the death and join the insurgency. Even the MILITARY believes that our activities in Iraq are generating insurgents that otherwise wouldn't exist.

So the "better there than here" argument is a false one. The vast majority of the insurgents we're fighting "there" would never even have tried to come over "here." And we could have focused our resources on the handful of actual hardcore terrorists that would.

2. JP5 and other war supporters point to the lack of another 9/11-style terrorist attack as proof that the war on terror is working. The fallacious logic of that "proof" has been repeatedly noted. But here's my question: What if terrorists staged another 9/11 attack tomorrow?

I just have the sneaking suspicion that JP5 and others would simply abandon the "no attacks since 9/11" justification and switch to "see, they're still dangerous and we can give them no quarter" justification -- and STILL support the war in Iraq and Bush administration policy.

It must be comforting to have infinite fallback positions -- especially since so many of the justifications and predictions about Iraq have turned out to be, um, not quite as true as advertised.

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Man up.

I too find that argument ridiculous. I always thought the Afghanistan front was plenty sufficient for taking it "there." I mean, it really was a haven for international terrorists. So where exactly do we stop at "taking the war to them"? Iran, Syria, how about Saudi Arabia? Hey, there's some sneaky people in Lebanon and Jordan, I hear. Will we invade the entire Middle East?

Closely related to this is the fuzzy notion of "they." A perfect illustration follows (a JP5 quote from this thread):
Here we see the pathetically simple notion of lumping all Arabs/Persians/Muslims together. As if the above description accurately describes even 1% of their population. (hint, read about the three circles relating to terrorism, a common view in the intel community)
But it's all in the name of keeping the debate fuzzy and ill-defined, refraining from any scrutiny or details...so justification is easy to invent for what we've done or will do. Word games are all that's required (think Guantanamo Bay for a juicy example).
And to top it off, the war cheerleaders are still clinging to the tired tactic of portraying those of us who question as "helping the enemy" or "betraying the country." Trying to say that the resistance in Iraq is running on the fuel of American dissent, implying that the insurgency would crumble if we'd all stand behind Bush, is as ridiculous as saying that our military strength is dependent on support back home (oh no, it has nothing to do with the amount of money pouring in).

In the end, it's they who are playing a subtle game of politics. What would their desired result of "shutting up" and/or "getting on board" be but to keep people like Bush in office?

Yes, we should attack the terrorists whereever they were.

THEY WEREN'T IN IRAQ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The people attacking us in Iraq are mostly not the same terrorist that would be attacking us on our shores. You do realize that don't you. And the VERY FEW that are in Iraq attacking us that might instead be attacking us at home could have been hunted down without a war costing tens of thousands of innocent lives and with a MUCH lower American death toll. And the hatred we have generated has replaced those VERY FEW with MANY more that would love nothing else but to attack American at home, so we are not safer from terrorism than if we did not start the Iraq war. And if you believe otherwise, you really do live in a fantasy world.

that (GOD FORBID) if there was ever another attack on our soil, all those in opposition to this admin will be "blamed" for it, right? We will be blamed for distracting the admin from its duty to "protect us". We will be blamed for giving "aid" and "comfort" to the enemy.

I am so sick of being told to "shut up" because I disagree with this admin.

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"Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet."

Two thoughts. 1. That's what I have trying to tell everyone for months. 2. It scares the crap out of me that the military didn't already know this. It explains, in part, why post war planning was so bad. It seems that they never once thought about the whole "infidel" thing and how it complicates things.

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I wasn't born with enough middle fingers.

...I will!!

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"Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet."