[madape]

I knew it wouldn't take long before you resorted to the typical anti-war rhetoric. So let's just get this out of the way. No, we haven't found stockpiles of WMDs, but yes Saddaam had them. No, we havevn't found Osama hiding out in some Iraqi cave, but yes Saddam had significant ties to terrorism. Yes, Abu Ghraib was a very unfortunate occurance, but it's certianly not US policy and we're dealing with it in exactly the way responsible governments deal with crimes like this.

What you don't hear repeated over and over and over and over on the mainstream meadia any more is that we have rid the world of one of the most dangerous enemies of the United States, liberated an arab country suffocated by brutal facism, and made the world a safer place.

These people you think are so innocent and mistreated actually declared Jihad on us years ago. Did you not get the 9/11 wake up call with the rest of America? The activities in Iraq didn't piss these people off, they were pissed off at us already. Who cares why. Nothing justifies their hate. They hate us because we support a Jewish state in the Middle East. They hate us because we're not muslim. They hate us because we are free and properous. Unless you propose cutting our ties to Israel and embracing Islam as our national religion, and become a subserviant muslim nation state, they will never be at peace with us. Never. This is the ideology that has been allowed to grow rampant in the region for decades. It will not go away just because we decide play nice with our enemies. In case you haven't noticed, that's what we were doing up until the day some Islamics decided to unleash passenger aircraft armageddon on us three years ago.

You claim that our presence in Iraq will cause young people to grow up hating America. I say that's bullshit. They already grow up hating us. What we are doing is making sure muslim children have the opportunity NOT to grow up hating us.

No one likes to be occupied by a foreign army. Like Bush says, we wouldn't like it either. But the US doesn't want to be there any more than the Iraqis want us there. But we must stay and finish what we've started. Once Iraq acheives it's independant sovreignty, we'll pack our shit up and leave. What we'll leave behind is the greatest gift ever given to the middle east. In time, the free and prosperous citizens of Iraq will look to America as a great friend, just as Japan does now, and just as West Germany did after WWII. Many Iraqis already love us (again, a fact you've apparently missed while watching CNN and reading Newsweek). This relationship will last much longer, and leave a far greater lasting impression than the overblown images from Abu Ghraib.

BTW, I'm glad you picked on Israel. The fact that Israel is knee deep in islamic shit is through no fault of it's own. They live in a land full of genocidal maniacs, who are brought up to beleive that the Jews are responsible for everything that goes wrong in the world. The fact that the Jews haven't been pushed out into the Mediterranean is a testament to their courage and tenacity. Unable to defeat Israel, the enemy has now set it's eyes on us. If we take the opposite course and choose to lay back and let the tide of Islamo-facism wash over us, it will be WE who are pushed out into the sea.