[sleepyjeff]

Wow...so much to respond to I don't know where to begin.

1) re: Loss of little freedoms to be more secure. How about loss of little freedoms to save ourselves from a loss of big freedoms. Here is what I mean. Lets say Someone like Dean(not Clinton or Gore because I honestly believe they would have reacted similar to Bush) was President when 9-11 occured. Lets say not a single inconveince was inacted upon the American public. Lets say this emboldened Osama or one of his fans to act again. Lets say this time tens of thousands were killed..........would it be a stretch to say that the new measures put in place after something 10 times bigger then 9-11 would be much, much more invonvenient and our loss of freedoms would not be just faintly noticed(or imagined) but in our faces real?

2)re: Cops on every street corner. Tokyo has em on every corner and I don't hear anybody complaining about the lack of freedom there(except maybe would be criminals)

3)re: Fighting Iraq to remove a secular government only to replace it with a Islamic one. We fought Iraq to remove a dictator who signed a cease fire agreement with us then broke it repeatedly.......we even did the Parental equivalent of counting by fractions....ok Sadaam you have 3 seconds 1, 2, 2.5, 2.75, 2.81, 2.9, 2.95, 2.99, 2.995.....I mean c'mon. We would have never been taken seriously again by any world leader if we didn't go in.

4)re: Retreating. Isn't that what the French do?