All this discussion has been very interesting to read and admittedly I see more pro-war points than I ever saw before - which is difficult for me. However, I've been anti-war since the beginning and I still remain the same. Here's some thoughts I have for those of you who are pro-war...

Saddam is a terror and I realize that he has been a ruthless threat to his people and to many people in the world. However, our motivations for this war are not what Bush claims them to be. Reports of him pounding on the desk and exclaiming "god this feels good" right before a war briefing definitely creates a cause for concern. This is just not sane human behavior...

The objectives for this war have been stated as wmd, pre-emption, liberation of the Iraqi people, and regime change.

On WMD, the behavior of the administration at the U.N. was questionable. Any time objective and measurable criteria for weapons elimination in Iraq was set forth as part of a resolution, it was ignored and nixed by the U.S.

One of the justifications for this war was "pre-emption." That is, Iraq is not an immediate threat, but a potential threat in the future. While a seemingly noble cause, that is a flawed form of logic. If we applied that same standard to other countries, we would be attacking at least half the world.

And one more point to think about. Signs don't currently point to a large "welcome" on the streets of Iraq. While certainly one could say that the people of Iraq are still operating under the rule of Hussein and his cronies and therefore are not speaking honestly, I do wonder if we are truly welcome. Time will tell on this one...

Regime change is indeed another noble cause considering who we are talking about - on the surface, anyway. But there are no signs of a people desparately crying out for help. In fact, they seem to be rebelling against us. Certainly life under his regime is oppressive and certainly it limits their ability to speak out, but in the end there have been no recent reports of mass killings and genocidal moves. Not since the Gulf War. This is not the desparate situation we have been led to believe it is.

Some of my worst predictions about this situation appear to be surfacing - Syria and Iran are exhibiting questionable behavior. If the rest of my predictions ring true, this is only the beginning. I do hope I'm wrong.

One more thought: enemies. This is just my own personal estimate, but I think it's safe to say that for every one person that is killed by an American bomb, we have gained 20 enemies. This is a number that represents the family and close friends of those who died - and probably a very conservative number at that (especially in public places that are inadvertantly bombed where many witnesses are present). That means that in this first week of the war where an estimated 350 Iraqi civilians died, we have created 7,000 more enemies - all of our own doing in a part of the world where we're not favored to begin with. This, of course, does not count countless others who see this on T.V. in Iraq or in other countries. If the war goes on for mere 8 weeks - using my conservative estimates - we will have created 56,000 enemies total. While *we* may see this as a collateral loss, the families of those who died will never be able to see this as such. Would you?

For those who think we're cleaning up other people's messes, let's not forget who created this mess - way back in the Iran/Iraq war. Let's not forget who funded Osama & camp. It's utterly rediculous to say we are cleaning up other countries messes...we are cleaning up our OWN mess and doing a very poor job at that.

Finally, remember that Bush & camp have not ruled out the use of nuclear weapons. While I certainly hope this not a serious threat and was mentioned in hopes of thwarting the enemy, the one decent thing I can say about Bush is the man speaks his mind. How do the pro-war people feel about this - should we use them, is this justifiable? How will the rest of the world react to an unprecendented usage of nuclear weapons?