From: "John Mullen" no@


That might be because WW2 was a war worth fighting.

But they are still our troops. And in the case of the reservists and guards,
they are our neighbors, the guys who put out your garage fire and issue you
burn permits, who check to see if your house is okay when you're on vacation,
and work the jaws of life and extract your highschooler from his wrecked Camaro
and give him emergency medical aid as they rush him to the hospital...they are
*us.*

As far as the war being worth fighting, I was sort of reluctantly for it,
knowing that something has got to be done about the whole middle east sooner or
later, and sooner will be easier than later, and Iraq is probably as good a
place to start as any.
I did read a very good argument for not having invaded Iraq from Bernard
Henri-Levy (author of the excellent "Barbarism With A Human Face"), who
described Iraq as "yesterday's enemy" along with Libya and Cuba, while today's
real, serious enemies are in order, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. About
Pakistan he said, "the stench of the apocolypse hovers over it." His view is
that we should have moved from Afghanistan into Pakistan. Sounds like a plan,
but doubtless much, much easier said than done. And, of course, just who is
this "we"? The USA alone, or all the west and western allies such as Japan
combined? If the latter, exorcizing Pakistan might be doable; if just the US
alone or with a handful of allies...I sure wouldn't be first in line to urge my
country to do that.
And Saudi Arabia? Yemen, maybe we could do something there, but the
Saudis--what do we do there? Every body has a solution when sitting around the
backyard barbeque sipping beer, but really, what do you do...what do you do?


Chris Mark