Bret,

I won't post a tome here again, since I have already fully stated my case and backed it up with supporting data. I'm glad to see that some anti-war folks actually have thought a little about things instead of just chanting "no war for oil."

For the record, I and 25 million other folks do listen to Rush Limbaugh since it is the only source of news/commentary from a conservative point of view. I also enjoy Fox News since you get to hear liberals, moderates and conservatives go head to head. If you think that "dittoheads" just regurgitate Rush Limbaugh's views, I think you under-estimate the intelligence and drive of most conservatives. Most liberals and anti-war folks, usually just state the "feel good" response since it sounds like they care. (present company excluded... you obviously have thought about your position and are voicing it here)

Here are a few comments on your statements.

You said: Not hardly! These demonstrations are some of the largest our nation has ever seen.

I say: Facts please. When I've looked into numbers from newspaper articles, they quote much smaller numbers than the news or anti-war coordinators give. There is a lot of exxagerating going on out there... kind of like the Million Man March and the Million Mom March. Both came up hundreds of thousands short, but they didn't hesitate to to claim a lot more. I remember looking at some of the NPS Park Police data where they actually photographed the crowd from the air and did a quadrant count.

You said: If the future involves our men being over there longer than we hoped and more lives lost than Americans can stomach I think the issues and grounds of anti-war protesting will be revisited with a whole new light cast on them and help hasten a change of plans. All said I pray to God it ends sooner than coming to this.

I say: Unfortunately, there will be a lot of lives lost. We have not even engaged the real enemy yet. Once the battle for Baghdad begins, I'm pretty certain there will be a lot of casualties. I hope and pray that there will be a swift, easy end to the war, but this is not realistic. We haven't fought a real ground war in a very long time. I know we will win the battle of Baghdad, but there is a cost. Regardless, I think we see all of the folks in the US who will protest the war, already protesting today. I don't think we will see these numbers double or even triple. Watch and wait is the order I guess...

You said: Your points on Blair, For the record, Brits supporting a war without a UN resolution was 20 some percent. With, 70 some percent.

I say: These are old numbers. If you check again, his popularity numbers have jumped significantly since the beginning of the war. They are comparing him to Winston Churchill.

You said: No offense Powell but if this is all about bringing his ego back down...I don't even know what to say.

I say: Nope, it's about getting him out of power, finding and destroying his WMD and restoring liberties and freedom to the Iraqi people. In that order.

You said: But we're talking the violation of international laws that Bush wages this war over - of which Isreal among others is in violation. You did fail to answer for Korea and I am interested as to what your response to that would be.

I say: Violation of international law is arguable. I and others would argue that the UN resolutions in place give us the basis to wage this war. I think Korea will be in the hot seat next by their choosing. I wonder whether we'll try to go through the UN again? We'll have to see.

You said: I am saying that to myself and a large number of the rest of the world, the pretext for this war is hypocritical - and I speak for ALL the reasons we've declared war.

I say: You have the right to your own opinion as an American. The opinions of the rest of the world don't count in issues of American national security. They don't get to vote.

You said: It concerns me as well but so does crossing my busy street. If "feelings" of insecurity are the pretext to pick our enemies and wage our wars we are opening an unmanageable can of worms.

I say: Yes, it's a can of worms, but not unmanageable for us. Iraq will set the precedent and then we'll move forward from there. The more nations that buckle, the easier the war on terror will get.

You said: No plans for mayor yet <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> I never said that international forms of justice should apply to domestic. Its a different animal. We are not soveriegn over the rest of the world. We are not the world's police force, supreme court, etc. - whether we think we are or not.

I say: You could argue that case before 9/11, but it doesn't hold water any more. After 9/11, they are not completely different animals. We now have to look for internal threats of evil from outside of our borders. Yes, you are right. We should not be the world's police force like Clinton tried to make us. (ie. Haiti, Somalia, Kosovo and without consulting the UN at all!) We must identify threats to American national security both inside and outside our borders and pro-actively remove the threat.

You said: Arabs have not committed acts of terror against us from the beginning of time. Terrorism is a reaction to something these people strongly oppose. What I am saying is if we are going to take up some righteous crusade against evil - we need to first at least consider what evils we are being accused of. Lets remove any reason for offense to these people, and in my opinion there have been and continue to be many.

I say: Well... now you've gone off the deep end. You want us to remove from our way of life anything that offends these people? (please don't run for office... I beg you) Where do we start? OK. They don't like our prosperity. They don't like the freedom and liberties we have. They would like to kill all Christians for what they did to Islam during the crusades. Actually, they would like to kill anyone who is not Muslim. Remember, these are the extreme radical Muslims who are waging the terror. Which one do we get rid of first? Or maybe we should just go whole hog and take away freedom, liberty and capitalism and set up an Islamic dictatorship. I'm sure this would please them.

You said in regards to Israel: Yes it has! Every intrusion with tanks and air power into the occupied territories is preceded by some statement to the effect. "We are moving in to destroy the terrorists capabilities to wage suicide attacks."

I say: I don't agree. Yes, they have responded to attacks, but not with full force. In order to apply my logic, they would have to crush the Palestinians, win a decisive victory, remove Arafat and destroy their ability to wage war. They haven't gone that far yet. See my comments before... I think the Isreal/Palestine conflict is complex and I'm not saying that this logic should be applied. Currently, Bush is proposing a Palestinian state to coexist with Israel. We'll see if that happens.

You said: Money is not the answer to these problems. It is, interestingly enough, "the root of all sorts of evil" This is a whole other debate on its own but I completey disagree with this statement. Look at the king of hatred - Bin Laden. Look at where the 9/11 terrorists came from - living conditions are not the issue.

I say: Good point. I agree that living conditions are not the only issue... but it is one of the issues and improving living conditions will help neutralize the breeding ground for American hatred: third world poverty.

You said: In the mid 80's Rumsfeld was embracing Hussein and handing over the biological ingredients with the intent and full knowledge that they would be turned into chemical weapons that would be used against military and civilians alike in Iran. This is no secret. Try telling to Joe Mohammed in Iran who is permanently impaired from the ordeal, who's kids have a multitude of neurological disorders, whose wife was killed, etc that the US isn't a sponsor of terror. I am not one to hold to past mistakes but for crying out loud, the same guy that orchestrated all those atrocities is now running Gulf WarII! And for the record he made no apology for it as I watched him on that talk show yesterday.

I say: I know that we supported Hussein during the Iran/Iraq war, but remember, Iran had held our diplomats hostage. He was probably the lesser of two evils at the time. As far as supplying biological weapons to Saddam, show me some facts or reports to prove this. I haven't seen this data... only heard the rumors, accusations, etc.

Thanks for the debate. I'm done. If you agree, let's close this thread and not respond any further. I think we've thoroughly presented both sides of the war debate here. You certainly have forced me to flex my brain muscle in this thread!

Powell