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Hmm ... in retrospect, I should've offered some more options & conditions to choose from. Oh well.

dont edit the poll..... otherwise you will end up with 2 of every choice....
anyway, bush seems to think everything is black and white, so leave the poll as is, "you're either for us or against us"

Hmm ... in retrospect, I should've offered some more options & conditions to choose from. Oh well.

Why?  Those are direct and to the point.  Good job.

I'm opposed. (One of these days I'll have to launch a thread on why legal justification, as in through the UN, does not also give us moral justification for the war.)

laying aside my usuall callus persona:
The knowledge that we will be sending our youth to die in a desert sickens me and makes me truely sad.
Yet I also do honestly believe that Saddam is a very dangerous man. An honest to god meglomaniac who would as casually unleash a plague that would kill hundreds of thousands as he would dip his pita in humus.
Every time I see him on TV I read his eyes, his body language. He has the cold dead eyes of a snake (no offence intended to snakes) and the calculated posture of a sociopath. I can just feel how he just dosent care about anything but a weird twisted macho idea of power.
I just hope we can grind him up without losing to many of ours and as few Iraqi civilians as possible.

Every time I see him on TV I read his eyes, his body language. He has the cold dead eyes of a snake (no offence intended to snakes) and the calculated posture of a sociopath. I can just feel how he just dosent care about anything but a weird twisted macho idea of power.
I just hope we can grind him up without losing to many of ours and as few Iraqi civilians as possible.

There is absolutely nothing in your post with which a normal person could take issue: However, might I pose two questions?

When you see him on TV, how do you know for certain it is him? (snake-eyes, etc)

[/b]Would you be of the same mind if you personally were one of the ones you referred to in your closing paragraph? (... I just hope we can grind him up without losing to many of ours ...)
Surely we should not be losing ANY of ours - or theirs, for that matter.

I guess I figure its him on the same basis I think we landed on the moon or found the remains of the Titanic. Are you suggesting the Saddam we see is created on a Hollywood sound stage?
Do you know from personal experience that Iraq exists at all? Could it be that all the geography books are fake too?
Do you wear tinfoil as regular headgear?

You ask if I would feel the same if my ass was on the line. Thats a fair question.
I really think I would-I am just to old and lack the skills needed.
I sure do hope I did not sound enthusiastic about war coming. I am not in the least bit enthusiastic about it and hope a peacefull solution cn be found. I just dont think it will be.

One of the biggest reasons I am opposed to the war is, with the introduction of the draft bill, the funny feeling I will be one of the first shipped off.

Sometimes war is just neccessary. It's not pretty but at least it's gotten a liitle cleaner. I just saw "The Patriot" on TV last week. War is deffinitely not like that anymore.

Yea, war has changed since then...today we can kill millions with a single push of a button! [/sarcasm]

I'm all for the removal of Saddam, he is a danger to the Iraqi people as well as his neighboring countries.  But it'll be a grave mistake if the U.S. acts alone, or without U.N. support.  I still think that assassination of Saddam is the best way to end this, and it's less messy and less expensive than a war.

I wouldn't have minded a "war" if the reasons for it were truly just and noble-- like if the US only wanted to give the people of Iraq the right to vote for their leader. But, I don't think we have much intention to do that.

Good call.

And frankly, Iraq is far from the most dangerous threat out there right now. Here are my danger spots:

1. Al Quaeda
2. North Korea
3. Pakistan (instability+nukes= )
4. The economy
5. The environment
6. Iraq

I agree Iraq is a potential threat, but not at the moment. There are very real, very present dangers out there right now. Seems silly to start at the bottom of the list, particularly if doing so will outrage the bulk of the human race.

You left out Iran.  The student revolt is just about quelled, and its leaders imprisoned.  Moreover, they are fast-tracking their nuclear reactor construction program, utilizing materials which easily can be used to make nuclear weapons.

Shame on you. 

I wouldn't have minded a "war" if the reasons for it were truly just and noble-- like if the US only wanted to give the people of Iraq the right to vote for their leader. But, I don't think we have much intention to do that.

Good call.

And frankly, Iraq is far from the most dangerous threat out there right now. Here are my danger spots:

1. Al Quaeda
2. North Korea
3. Pakistan (instability+nukes= )
4. The economy
5. The environment
6. Iraq

I agree Iraq is a potential threat, but not at the moment. There are very real, very present dangers out there right now. Seems silly to start at the bottom of the list, particularly if doing so will outrage the bulk of the human race.

You left out Iran.  The student revolt is just about quelled, and its leaders imprisoned.  Moreover, they are fast-tracking their nuclear reactor construction program, utilizing materials which easily can be used to make nuclear weapons.

Shame on you. 

So would you happen to agree with my list? Hopefully you can reply without resorting to insults.

Dealing with threats isn't as cut and dy as you make it.  Your list is pretty acurate on the level of the overal danger of the threats.

However you ignore the issue of which threats can be the most easily dealt with. 
We could handle Iraq with little trouble if the UN would shut the hell up.  We are gettin that out of the way first so it does not become a bigger problem like NK. 

Also who knows what else is going on.  For all we know there could be an American operative in North Korea as we speak, putting explosives in thier Nuclear plant.  What we see in the News is about 1/10th of what is going on and only about 1/100th of what we see in the news is honest and unbias.

Dealing with threats isn't as cut and dy as you make it.  Your list is pretty acurate on the level of the overal danger of the threats.

However you ignore the issue of which threats can be the most easily dealt with.  We could handle Iraq with little trouble if the UN would shut the hell up.  We are gettin that out of the way first so it does not become a bigger problem like NK. 

Also who knows what else is going on.  For all we know there could be an American operative in North Korea as we speak, putting explosives in thier Nuclear plant.  What we see in the News is about 1/10th of what is going on and only about 1/100th of what we see in the news is honest and unbias.

I agree that none of these issues are cut and dry, but the line of thinking in your last paragraph leads to the assertion that we citizens are incapable of making any judgement about government actions at all.  That means the end of democracy.  I don't think we should get to comfortable with that idea.  Instead we should demand the truth about these issues, which, you're right, will not arrive via the News.

See that is where it gets really tricky.  Should the people of the United states know everything.  My initial reply is to scream out YES!.  Nowever think about it. 
How long would this nation last if the goverment told us everything. 

"US Special forces team to make secret raid on North Korean Nuclear plant tomorrow at 1:00AM.  Pictures at 11" 

Is that what we want? 
People are not incapable of making choices, however the whole reason that we are a republic and not a Democracy is that your average person CAN"T make many of those choices.  Take the situation in Iraq.  Most people hear a bit of the story and then jump to a conclusion one way or the other.  That is not what we want when the nation is on the line. 

Where do we draw the line?  I have no idea.  But I do know that there will always be secrets kept from the public.  Not because the goverment wants to keep us in the dark, but because for our own safety we must be kept in the dark about some things.