Contrary to your belief, I almost never watch the news. It's too depressing. I live in the real world where the sky is not falling and the birds actually sing.

"But, there are standards that God expects us to adhere to. He DID give us a guideline to live by of which we can't deny that we didn't know better if we go against those guidelines. These are the Ten Commandments, and God said "thou shalt not kill"(the sixth commandment)."

Indeed, some people believe that the text of the Bible that has come down to us through countless retellings orally and multiple transcriptions and translations and decisions by men on which books ought to be included are the true and correct work of God. But not everyone does.

But even at that, there is ambiguity about whether causing the loss of a fetus is killing.

"Killing innocent children is wrong, and we all will be held accountable for our terrible deeds."

There is all kinds of killing going on . . . some more obvious; some for which we are more or less culpable. I agree we will be held accountable for our deeds.

The point was that no Iraqis have landed on our shore, or presented any threat to us. They were not involved in 9/11. They had no weapons of mass destruction, and even if they did, how would that present a threat to us? Let's say that Iraq (or more likely, Iran) had nuclear weapons and the capability of delivering a nuclear warhead to our shores. Yes, it would be catastrophic, making 9/11 look like an IED blowing up a humvee. But what would our response be? We would obliterate Iraq with our own nuclear arsenal. We would leave that country totally uninhabitable for generations to come. Don't you think any country considering a nuclear strike on our country doesn't know this? The real danger is from small groups of terrorists, not affiliated with any particular country, smuggling in a nuclear device to our country because of the almost non-existent security at our ports. Instead of doing something about that problem, President Bush is more interested in invading other countries which are not involved in Terrorism and wiretapping Americans illegally, for god only knows what purpose. If it was terrorists he was after, he could have done the wiretapping, then asked the FISA court for a warrant after the fact. Instead, he chose to break the law.

You say, "I think George Bush honestly believed that he was securing the long-term safety of our country by ridding Saddam Hussein from power." Well, you're entitled to your opinion. I personally believe that he used 9/11 as an excuse to finish off what he thought his father had left unfinished, so he could one-up his dad. Neither my opinion nor yours is provable, since we can't read George Bush's mind, so neither one is really relevant.

Then you say, "But Bush simply felt that the Middle East's oil supply was in too big of jeapardy with Hussein in the region. And had the world's oil supply been hijacked, everyone world-wide would have been screwed." Interesting that the administration has constantly denied that invading Iraq had anything to do with oil. You sound more like Michael Moore than a conservative. And Hussein was trying to hijack all of the middle east's oil? Interesting, since Iraq itself is sitting on top of one the major oil reservoirs in the world. What would he have done, invade Saudi Arabia (our staunch ally and home of Osama Bin Laden and the extremist Wahabbist sect of Islam)? After he had already invaded Kuwait and got his ass kicked for his trouble? Please.

The point you have completely missed is that our armed forces, in addition losing 2,500 of our own, have been directly responsible for the deaths of more Iraqis than Saddam could ever have dreamed of, many of them women and children. Yes, Iraqi children. I know that for some anti-choice people a developing fetus is more important than a living Iraqi child, but clearly you must see the dilemma there. If abortion is bad, then killing innocent children in an unnecessary, unwinnable war must be even worse. Where is the outcry from the "pro-life" contingent denouncing this horror?