Dragon, you give us a break from your obvious Bush-hating. Peacenicks in charge have always spelled disaster. The most recent example is Jimmy Carter, who is consistently ranked the worst president ever.

Bush is defending our country; I'm sorry if you are unable to see that.

America is the leader of the free world and has a duty to bring freedom to other nations.if kerry is elected the UN will rule the world..and we all know the un is great at bringing peace..right!

I assert that Mr. Bush has started a war that should not have occurred.

Where did I say that I hate Bush?

There is a big difference between a "peacenick" country and an aggressor nation. Right now, I hate to say it, we are an aggressor nation, and the entire world feels threatened, and our country is not as safe today as it was 5 years ago. Americans traveling abroad are in more danger than they have been in decades.

Sorry, I don't hate Mr. Bush. I simply don't agree with his policies of leading our country into a reputation of an aggressor nation.

There is a difference between strength and bully-ism. I believe in strength. I am a martial artist. I am able to defend myself. I walk with confidence. And I have never attacked or bullied and assaulted anyone.

My aunt and uncle went to Egypt earlier this year and as they were out and about on tours they would be assigned additional security because they were americans.

I don't understand this idea that leaders who try to work with the nations of the world are wrong. I don't see why the UN is such a bad idea. We are all citizens of this planet. We all have to live together. America is supposed to be based on ideas of personal freedom and that all ideas are valid. That should extend to other nations. America can be a great hope for people. Don't like the reality of living in your nation? Come to America (legally). We will take you in. Lead by acceptance, not with a stick. That's why the radical islamic segment has been so successful in recruiting. We tell them how to live. We occupy their lands with our military. If we just left them alone and didn't try to overrun their countries with our ideals, morals, military, and companies they would hate us less.

One of my biggest disagreements with President Bush is that I don't think the leader of our country should make fun of other nations in public to score political points. He's supposed to represent us and I don't like how that looks.

Lets all be honest here. America has done alot of harm in the world. We have put in place and supported alot of dictators. Dictators that have then gone on and killed alot of people. Like Saddam Hussein for one. I for one hang my head about that fact. We need to get over this idea that we are God's gift to the world because thus far we really havn't shown it.

I'm afraid you're dead-wrong, dragon. WE were attacked on 9/11. We are not the aggressor. We are (1) defending ourselves, and (2) making sure it doesn't happen again. You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists.

If you want John Kerry for president, you're basically saying that we will only apply our military pressure AFTER the USA is attacked again. That's one of his statements; look it up.

If you want George Bush for president, you're basically saying that anyone who harbors, supports, or supplies terrorists is our enemy, and we will take the battle to them before they take it to us.

You're free to choose whatever approach makes sense to you, but I have no doubts that George Bush's approach is the right one. It's one of those things that most Americans know deep in their souls that we are doing the right thing. You'll see what I mean on election day.

"WE were attacked on 9/11. We are not the aggressor. We are (1) defending ourselves, and (2) making sure it doesn't happen again. You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists."

We were attacked by Al Quida, mastermined by Osama Bin Laden. But we overthrew Saddam Hussein because??? Thats like attacking Mexico for the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Let's not forget that this president has failed to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice. Remember that before we attacked Iraq, Osama Bin Laden and Al Quida loathed Saddam Hussein.
When the troops pulled into Iraq. Do you want to know the ONLY building was that they defended? The OIL MINISTRY....

"You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists."
So what you're saying is that if you are not a Republican then you are a terrorist or supportive of the same. I've heard a rant like this before. From one Adolf Hitler. On a lighter note; I've heard talk that they are giving Neo-Conservatives the new title of Fascist-Conservative.
And when all is said and done. I wouldn't be one bit surprised to see members of the Bush Administration, maybe even the man himself, brought up on war crimes charges.

America may be the strongest nation in the world. But this does not put our reigning administration above international law. I don't care how many 9/11's there are.

Currently we ARE an aggressor nation at the mercy of our Commander-In-Chief. How would you feel if the entire world under the auspices of the U.N. declared war on us? How would you feel then, seeing 9/11 replayed day after day.

I shudder to think about it.

Wrong, George. Democrat talking points, nothing of substance. Bush-hating nonsense. The only thing you didn't mention is Haliburton. Blah, blah, blah.

Sorry, Todd. You insult me for telling me I am with the terrorists because I am not "with you." All I am saying here is that my personal moral values do not allow me to vote for a president who has turned our nation into an aggressor nation. Regardless if we were attacked on 9/11. We were attacked before that, nothing new. And despite what we do, we will be attacked again, and attacks are more likely now than ever, since we irk so many other nations.

But please, do not call me a "terrorist lover" or "Bush hater." I am neither. I am a peaceful person who is voting for the lesser evil this time around.

Dragon, If you're voting for Kerry, then you're voting for the one and only evil. Bush is good.

We may be attacked again, but I strongly believe that if Bush was not in charge, we would have been attacked already. We are keeping the terrorsists off-tilt by attacking them where they live. Kerry would fight them on our home soil.

I didn't call you a terrorist lover, but I do call you a Bush-hater. And I do think you're wrong with your approach.

Todd: Sorry, I don't hate people. I belong to no party. I vote for the person every time. I am not going to comment about what might have happened if the dozens of people in government that would have been more suitable to be president than Mr. Bush in the last few years had been in office.

I really think that you're calling the majority of people in this country "wrong" and "Bush haters." I think you're in the minority, and it will be obvious come November.

Now, I would be beating a different drum if I had the choice to vote for Colin Powell for president. Now there is a man I could get excited about. But history, and Powell himself, has not allowed that.

Yes, I know, the "anyone but Bush" garbage. Mr. Bush has been an excellent leader who led us out of the recession he inhereited, led us past 9/11, gave us definitive direction, and gave us back decency in the White House.

The majority of Americans support this position, check the polls dude. It will be a landslide, or at least a large plurality, on election day -- for George Bush.

Actually if you look at the most recent polls they show that Kerry and the president are tied or very, very close. Furthermore polls show that out of the issues of Iraq, the economy, health care, and terrorism people believe Kerry would be more suited to handle them with the sole exception of terrorism.

i think i'm gonna stay out of this argument.

No, Bush is ahead. Wrong again. And again, and again, and again.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6159637/site/newsweek/

If you look about half way down there is a nice little chart about who would be elected had the election been held now. And right there at the end it shows Kerry ahead.

Todd please stop attacking everyone and just saying they are wrong. You can say it all you want but it's not going to make it so and it ruins your position. You don't seem to want to back up your statements with any facts or discussion and simply attack anyone that shows an opinion that differs from yours.

Babel, you're wrong. I've said it again because it's true.

You can't take a single poll and say it's correct, you look at them all and see a trend. The trend clearly says Bush is approximately 5 points ahead of Kerry overall since the debate. It also says that Bush is much further ahead when you break out the internals.

You must have a lot of free time to keep digging up URLs to try to prove a faulty assumption.

A 5 point lead is down from where he was which as I recall was a double digit lead. 5 points is also within the margin of error of most statistical polls. That's what we call a close race, far from the landslide you claim will happen.

Dude, it is NOT within the statistical margin. Will you PLEASE GET A LIFE and stop perpetuating your stupid argument!

It's basic statistics... what I think I will do is get a life and stop arguing with stupid people like yourself.

Babel and Sedertree your logic is quite backwards to me. You claim that we are an aggressor nation and for that now more people hate us and we are more likely to get attacked. If you assume that then you have to assume if we do nothing then they may like us and will be less likely to be attacked. If this is true, then how do explain what happened on September 11th, 2001? The whole time Bill Clinton was President he never did a damn thing to stop terrorism after the first bombing in the WTC, American Embassy bombings in Africa, and the attack on the U.S.S. Cole. We didn't do a damn thing to the terrorists and they still killed 3000 of our citizens on 9/11. According to your logic they shouldn't have hit us because we weren't an aggressor nation. Let me tell you right here they hit because we weren't an aggressor nation. Had we been an aggressor nation and did something fighting terrorism other than serving legal papers in the 90s, our nation would have 3000 more people in our population because there would have a lot better chance 9/11 wouldn't have happened. Damn right we are an aggressor nation. We are being aggressive now because being passive got 3000 of our fellow Americans killed and we can't go back to that way of thinking.

And yes we needed to go into Iraq. No there wasn't a link between 9/11 and Iraq but that doesn't mean Iraq and Al Quida were working together at other things. It is the President's job to protect the American people and after 9/11 and he can not take any chances with Saddam Hussein giving terrorists chemical or biological and using them on our own soil. Had we not done nothing with Saddam and something like this did happen people like you would be the first wringing your hands all over the President for not doing enough. Well he is doing enough and taking out Iraq was just.

I will end with this and it is so true with what happened during the 90s while we were being passive with terrorism and the terrorists were the aggressors:

"Appeasement only makes the aggressor more aggressive."

That is a quote from former Secretary of State Dean Rusk under JFK. It was used in the movie "Thirteen Days." That wasn't a line just used for Hollywood affect. It is so true and something a lot of Democrats used to believe. Maybe not such the case anymore.

Actually I don't think I've said anything about the US being an agressor nation, though we are, that's what you are when you attack people. That's just english. Those that attack are the agressor. But semantics asside let me say the following.

According to www.iraqbodycount.com there have been between 12,000 and 15,000 civilian deaths in Iraq as a direct result of our invasion. The new health ministry in Iraq has set this figure at something like 38,000 (quoting that figure from the news recently, I don't have an exact source). By the way the US military has refused to bother trying to count civilian deaths.

We took what was a brutal but orderly country and turned it into chaos. Chaos that reigns to this day some 15 months later. When we invaded we did not protect power plants, water treatment plants, hospitals, banks, schools, museums, nothing, oh, wait, except for the oil ministry. To this day the iraqi people do not have clean water, don't have reliable power, still are dieing to the tune of dozens a day.

Given this environment is it not believeable that we have created the most furtle breeding grounds for terrorists on the planet? And can you really blame the Iraqi people for hateing us? Because of us tens of thousands of them are dead and their lives are hell. Sure life under Saddam wasn't perfect but at least they were alive and had basic services.

Your insistance that Al Quida and Saddam were in league is against most of the facts. Osama hated Saddam. Thought he was a bad muslim. He even approached the Saudi government after Saddam invaded Kuait and offered his help and the help of his Afgan fighters to protect the muslim holy sites. Besides if we are going after those with ties to Al Quida why aren't we invading Saudi Arabia? The lions share of the 9/11 attackers were Saudi. Saudi royals and businessmen are big big supporters of Al Quida and provide them most of their money. I'm also curious to know exactly what chemicals and biological materials Saddam was going to give Al Quida? We still havn't found any and I believe a new CIA report is going to indicate that he hadn't had any for a while (again quoting recent news, no source to provide).

I'll close with a quote of my own, "Only an idiot fights a war on two fronts." We had a war going in Afganistan and we didn't finish the job, it's still going today. We could have captured Osama right then and there. We had the world on our side after 9/11. We could have done anything we wanted in order to track Osama down. Instead we squandered that good will on this ill thought out attack on Iraq. And all we've gotten for our efforts there is a worse terrorist problem then we had before.

Sounds like it's time to get moving:

We need to invade Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and North Korea quickly. All have ties to terrorism, proven and documented. Two of them have nuclear weapons (weapons of mass destruction), two of them have lots of oil. Let's take them while we can.

Let's invade mexico and get our good jobs back!

Heh. We'd have to invade Canada too. That's where my job went, after one of my coworkers went there to train our replacements.

We could start by leveling the UN building in NY. That would send the message that the war on terrorism is on.

Yes it is true that innocent people die war. It is terrible but it is something that cannot be avoided. The difference between us and Al Quida and Saddam is we don't intentionally take cruise missles or chemical weapons and kill people of other nations or worse yet people of our own nation. Even if those fatality numbers are correct, 300,000 Iraqis possibly killed under the reign of Saddam Hussein are much more than those killed over there since April of 2003. I will also mention many of the Muslim people killed over were killed by Muslims. It is just not Americans doing the killing. We do whatever we can to avoid civilian deaths but the terrorists over there will kill civilians intentionally just to make a point. Yes people are still dying over there but fewer will have died in the long run now Saddam is gone and we WILL be safer because of it.

I forgot to mention about the "only an idiot fights a war on two fronts" comment. I guess Franklin Roosevelt was an idiot too then. During WWII we were fighting the Nazis in Europe and fighting the Japanese in the Pacific. We won that war because fighting on both fronts was necessary just as fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq are necessary in this war.

Actually no, the difference between President Rosevelt and President Bush is that Bush had a choice. Rosevelt declared war on Japan in response to the attacks on Pearl Harbor. In response to that declaration Germany declared war on us because they had a treaty with Japan saying they would do so. He had no choice but to fight the war and he had the world on his side.

Yes Saddam killed many people. However we are the ones that put him in power. We supported him. We armed him. We gave him those chemical weapons he used on his citizens. And yes war is terrible and there are always innocent casulties. I'm just confused though on how we can cry out at 3000 US deaths on 9/11 and shrug our shoulders at 5x that number in Iraq. Try to put yourself in the shoes of the Iraqis. They think it's significant and they blame us. They blame us for the hell that their life has become. For them they are less safe with us there. They are less safe with Saddam gone. And because of that they are responding.

I will concede that some day, far, far in the future we might be safer then we were before the invasion. I will also concede that overall the world is probably a better place without Saddam in it. But that said there are several glaring problems. Really big ones. Problems that shadow and dwarf those two possible goods.

We are less safe having taken our eye off Afganistan.

We are less safe having Osama Bin Laden loose in the world to plot and plan new attacks on us.

We are less safe after having created the most fertile terrorist breeding ground in the history of the world in Iraq.

We are less safe dumping 10 billion dollars a month into Iraq while critical homeland security needs go unfunded. The coast guard doesn't have the funding it needs to modernize it's fleet. Border security goes unfunded. Port security goes unfunded. Airport security goes underfunded. Funding for fire and police is down from the Clinton years. The reserves, another facet of America's first response system, are in Iraq and Afganistan, not here at home.

By any measure I can think of we are less safe having invaded Iraq. Not only are we less safe we have created a situation where we have alienated world opinion. If the goal is to make us more safe we failed. Spectacularly. All of this could have been avoided by not invading Iraq and keeping our troops focused on Al Qaeda.

Babel:

You make a good point. Don't you think if you were an Iraqi citizen, no matter how you looked at it and how it ACTUALLY happened, the 30,000 people that died this year in Iraq are 10 : 1 those that died in 9/11. You're going to blame America -- justified or not. You're going to spread negative propaganda throughout the Arab world against this country, and you're therefore fueling the first bin Laden is stoking.

I really would not want to travel abroad right now, and certainly not in the middle east. I like my head to remain on my shoulders, attached. So, am I safer now?