In a New York Times article; “Hunting the Tiger” by Thomas L. Friedman, the Author is taking the false view that the war in Iraq is a “quagmire” and Bush doesn't know what he's doing. It even misquotes Paul Bremer by taking his comment on troop strength out of context, so much so that Bremer had to make a public statement to clarify what he said. This is just typical of the kind of reporting we’ve been getting from the mainstream media who want to see John Kerry elected, or is it really that they just oppose George W. Bush because he’s a Republican, and want to see “any” democrat in office? They’ll have to settle for Kerry because “he’s not Bush”. I was listening briefly to a talk radio show last night where the host had asked callers to tell him what they like about John Kerry. Oddly enough, no one could. What their calls all boiled down to was “He’s not Bush” but no one could articulate anything they really liked about Kerry. In all the times this has been brought up on talk radio, no one yet has been able to point out any accomplishment that Kerry has had in his 20 years in the Senate. I think it’s odd that even people who support Kerry for President can’t tell us why they think he is qualified for the office. On one thing they are united in their thinking, “he’s not Bush”.

The real problem is that the liberals don't understand what Bush is doing and that the War on Terror is not a tunnel vision view of capturing Osama Bin Ladden in retaliation for 911 and nothing more. The War on Terror is a global effort to defeat terrorism wherever we find it and we found it in Iraq. Most liberals don't even understand why we are in Iraq and think, as John Kerry has recently been saying, “it's a war separate from the War on Terror“. Obviously, Kerry doesn't get it either. Who do they think we're fighting in Iraq if not terrorists? Terrorism is a philosophy, not a specific people or geographical location. Better terrorists come to Iraq to die than to our shores to kill our citizens.

Iraq is not a “haven for terrorists” as Kerry has said, but a graveyard for terrorists. You can always depend on the liberals like Kerry to be on the wrong side of the major issues like the war on terror, taking the enemy's position, and degrading America's effort to win by trying to undermine the will of the American people to support the fight. Kerry says there were no terrorists in Iraq before we disposed of Saddam Hussein, that’s simply not true. Terrorists from all over the Middle East have been in and out of Iraq for decades, receiving support from Saddam Hussein according to newly released information in the Dualfer Report. It’s long been known that Saddam was giving financial support to the families of suicide bombers who attack western interests and innocent civilians in Israel. How can Kerry say that Saddam had no ties with terrorism?

It's despicable what Kerry and the Democrats have been doing in their effort to defeat America in the battle of wills. That is where this war will be won or lost, not on the battle field. It is a battle of wills between us and them that will decide the winner. Iraq, with their rich oil resources, cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of terrorists to finance their efforts. We must win this battle of freedom and liberty over oppression and terrorism. Kerry, along with leading Democrats, is doing the exact same thing now that he did with Vietnam in trying to break the will of the people to support this war. That is a major reason why there is so much trouble in Iraq today because the Iraqis are now unsure of our intentions and whether we will stick it out with them. They don't know which side to join because they don't know which side will win. If it weren't for Kerry and the liberals, the Iraqis and the terrorists would know what to expect from us and President Bush, and the terrorists would know by now that they don't have a chance of winning. With Kerry on the scene, terrorists have hope and believe they do have a chance of breaking the American will and resolve, which makes them only fight harder rather than give up. Put yourself in the minds of the terrorists for a moment and think how you would feel if you knew that the American nation was united against you. Then think how differently you would feel knowing that opposition to the war and an anti-war candidate might cause the US to pull out and leave Iraq at your mercy. What would you do? You would continue to attack even more to create more descent and anti-war sentiment and that’s exactly what they are doing now. They want that country for their own and I'm afraid Kerry would give it to them if he were given the chance. Once terrorists controlled Iraq with it's oil rich resources there would be no stopping them. We would soon be finding them here with their WMD and probably nukes. We need a strong president like Bush who will stand up to them and crush them where they are, that's the only tactic these radical Islamics respect and understand.

The following is a series of questions presented to me by Jim, one of my group members, a Democrat with an open mind and willingness to listen to opposing views. Since Jim has asked these key questions at the very time that I feel they need answering, I have decided to share this dialogue with the group. Some minor editing has been done for clarity and objectiveness.

Yes, it's worth it, Jim, in the long run and in the overall war on terror. Iraq was a terrorist supporting country who failed to live up to the cease fire agreement of 1991, who was in violation of 17 UN resolutions, who would not comply with world demands to come clean, and who was a major threat to the stability of the region. When we invaded Iraq, intelligence reports from every country with an intelligence agency including France, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Israel, GB, Spain, Italy, etc showed that stockpiles of WMD existed in Iraq as well as programs for more including nuclear which may have materialized within a year. No, there was no obsession with Iraq, at least no more than has existed since the Gulf War. There was clearly a growing and grave threat, according to intelligence, that any responsible leader would have to deal with before it became an eminent threat, at which point it may be too late to act. That was the situation Bush had to face and make a decision on to protect our country after the devastation of the 911 attacks. Bush wasn't about to take a chance with American lives and ignore this threat the way Clinton did, 911 changed our way of thinking about potential threats to our country. As it turned out, according to the Dualfer Report, all of those programs did exist, but on a much smaller scale than previously thought, right up to the invasion. They were being hidden from the inspectors until sanctions would be lifted through corruption in the Oil For Food Program, when Saddam could then go into mass production again. This point has never been made in the media but people have to know that WMD programs including nuclear were continuing in the labs right up to the invasion. We would have had to deal with it eventually, but as it happened, we took care of the problem while Saddam was at a weak period in his WMD program and only the stockpiles were missing. We still don‘t know where they went, only that they were not there when we invaded. Within a couple of years from now, Saddam would have been right back where he was with WMD stockpiles and beyond, had we not taken preemptive action. We still would have to go in there but then would have to face his deadly and toxic weapons and many more would die. Bush could have waited longer or just put it off and let the threat grow more to avoid an unpopular decision but he had the courage to do the right thing in spite of the protests, rather than take a chance with American lives and those of our allies in the region for political security. He placed the nation's security ahead of his own personal career and political ambitions. He acted in the best interest of the country, not himself as John Kerry is doing.

I have been following all of this very closely nearly 18 hours a day since 9-11-01 and am not fooled by Kerry's rhetoric. We will not, nor could anybody bring people together in this country now unless we suffer another major terrorist attack. We were united after the last one for some time and then something changed. What changed was that Democrats started campaigning on a platform of "Bush hate" and began criticizing and condemning everything Bush does with gross mischaracterizations and outright lies, that's what divided the country. For God's sake open your eyes and look around you. Look at John Kerry and how he is running his campaign. All you ever hear from this man is "Bush did this", and "Bush did that" and "anything Bush can do, I can do better" but he never says how. This has been going on for the past two years now, and Kerry will loose this election because most Americans are sick and tired of it and still haven‘t seen his plan for anything. Kerry and the Democrats have been most effective in dividing the country and generating their own alternate reality of hate and disrespect for our president, all for the sake of their own political power. After the election, they are going to be even more angry and hateful and resentful because their guy lost to Bush again, who they now have nothing but hate for. But it goes even further than that. Kerry's rhetoric on the war has nearly undermined our national security and resolve to win against the terrorists and has convinced many in his party that Bush is taking the wrong course in fighting terrorism. Once again, in a very subtle way, he has betrayed his country as he did during Vietnam with his pessimism and propaganda.

It's true that the Iraqi borders are nearly impossible to protect and any amount of American troops would not change that because of the terrain, but keeping terrorists out isn't going to stop them or their jihad. Letting them cross over from Iran into Iraq where we can kill them is more effective in stopping them and don‘t think that we aren‘t killing hundreds of them if not thousands. No one said this was going to be easy. No one ever said it was going to be quick either. Bush told us just the opposite, that it was going to take a long time and would at times be difficult. He knew what was coming in the broader sense and had no illusions about it. He knows Islamic Fundamentalists are determined to kill us and that isn't going to stop until we kill them first. Their power was allowed to grow during the 90s and now we have a much stronger enemy that will be harder to stop than it would have been 10 years ago. But stop them we must or more Americans will continue to die at the hands of the terrorists.

You forget that Afghanistan is about a year ahead of Iraq and people there are now enjoying their freedom and liberty. You also seem to forget that freedom and liberty didn't exist in Germany before WWII, or Russia before the end of the Cold War. Now it does. Iraq is now in the middle of a revolution and like all revolutions, it will eventually be over and the people will have the freedom they desire, we are there to help them. We are the only country in the world that can make this happen just as long as people don't give up and back down as Kerry and the liberals have been trying to get them to do. Talk about rhetoric... "going it alone"? I'm really getting tired of hearing that BS. Surely you know better than that, we have 30 allies there with us. Who do you think is suffering the most casualties in Iraq, the Americans? Wrong! It's the Iraqis who we are working along side of. They are fighting and dying for their country and their freedom just as we did in our Revolutionary War. America has given them this opportunity and they want it to succeed. When it does, it will be a tremendous asset to us and a blow to terrorists in the war on terror. How can any loyal American oppose and not support this effort 100%? The ignorance of those who oppose it is just mind boggling, they seem to have know knowledge of our Revolutionary War or the history of America. They don’t seem to understand that freedom comes at a price and has to be continually fought for.

I don't know why you think that President Bush hasn't already brought together the greatest minds to consult on this effort. Some of the greatest political minds are right there in his cabinet. He has brought in the best military minds to handle the military issues, and the best think tanks to work on our national security and preventing further attacks. With the Patriot Act, countless terrorist plots against American citizens have been prevented. They won’t release exact numbers but it is in the hundreds. The government doesn’t talk much about it to protect the integrity of ongoing investigations on others. What is this "consensus paper" you mentioned? A consensus of who? That sort of sounds like John Kerry needing a permission slip from the UN to pass his "Global Test".

I am not an expert on the Vietnam war even though I served during it. I do know that we were in there only as a small group of advisors under Eisenhower until John Kennedy started sending in troops. Then Johnson completely screwed it up with escalating troop involvement and running things himself. That was a big mistake and it took Nixon a while to get us out of there, but there was a reason for us being there too. At the time, we were fighting against the spread of Communism and trying to keep Southeast Asia from falling to it. As soon as we pulled out, it did and millions of Vietnamese and Cambodians died who we were protecting and the entire region fell to the Communists. I don't condemn Kerry for wanting us out of Vietnam, I condemn him for the way he did it by betraying the men fighting there with treasonous acts and promoting the Communist view on the public stage. That was treason against our country and only gave propaganda to the enemy which they used to further torture POWs. It gave our country a black eye and was the cause of us loosing a war for the first time. If Kerry wanted the US out of there, he could have worked with the government instead of against it. The method he chose shamed America for decades to come and destroyed the lives of millions of Vietnam vets. And it wasn't because of his commitment to end the war, it was done purely for his own political gain. He used the issue as a platform to launch his political career at the cost of American integrity and the reputation of the vets. And now he's doing it again with the war on terror for his own political gain. Soldiers fighting there now are afraid they too will be coming home to disdain and disrespect from the American people because of the anti-war propaganda from the left and being promoted by the media and John Kerry. It's just despicable to anyone who can see it. This man has absolutely no character or values and that's why I despise him for trying to take the presidency of our country by constantly smearing a good man and a good president and everything he has accomplished in spite of the obstacles facing his first term. Kerry will say and do anything to win this election and that includes smearing the mission of our brave troops in Iraq with his pessimistic gloom and doom rhetoric.

You have presented some very good questions that need answers and that is what I try to do with my writings. Interesting that you would bring up the subject of Bush and Theology. I guess Kerry must be criticizing him for it now because there has been allot of talk about it on the news channels. I see the Democrats spinning the whole thing and distorting the issue again with their attempts to mischaracterize Bush as some religious fanatic. I think this can be answer fairly simply. Bush does not think he is having conversations with God in any way different than all people of faith do. Bush does not believe God is talking to him directly and telling him what to do or how to do it. What Bush is doing is praying to God for strength and wisdom. God is not making decisions for him, Bush prays and asks God for the wisdom to make the right decisions himself. Spiritual strength is all important in a leader, I think Kerry is now trying to fake it in imitating Bush by talking about his spirituality which is questionable. Christians believe that if you are good to God and obey his laws, God will be good to you and give you guidance through spiritual strength which is often felt in confidence, or guilt. Confidence for the right acts and guilt for the wrong acts. People who know President Bush ( and I have talked to some and still do) say the man you see on the tv is the same man you see in person. He is compassionate, humorous, loving, caring, and a decent moral person. His highest loyalties and priorities are to God and Country. He may not be the best at spontaneous speaking but then neither am I. I write well, or so I'm told, because I can take my time to compose my thoughts but when it comes to speaking, I'm kind of like Bush, have to think about my answers and don't always have the right words ready, so I understand this flaw in President Bush that we all saw in the debates. But to get back to your question, Bush depends on his spirituality to help him stay strong and confident in making the decisions he has to make on a daily basis. When he sent men into battle in Afghanistan and Iraq, he prayed to God, not to ask God to make the decision for him, but for the wisdom to make the right decision and that God would approve. When God approves of you, you just feel it and it's those feelings that guide George W. Bush. You can see it in his smile and casual demeanor that he is comfortable with himself and confident in his decisions. He doesn’t feel he has to put on a show or pretend to be anyone but himself. He likes being surrounded with people and easily relates to the common man which he considers himself one of. He has shown over the past four year that he can be trusted to mean what he says and say what he does. You may not agree with him on some issues but at least you know what you are getting with Bush. Can you say the same for Kerry?

I'm with you in hoping for bi-partisanship after the election but I don't think that's likely to happen, at least not among the populous for this reason. Too many Democrats have been fooled into believing that Bush stole the election in 2000 even though two separate Justice Department investigations proved otherwise. This year, the DNC has been reinforcing that belief with propaganda and even predicting that it will happen again with their false charges of disenfranchised voters when the facts clearly show that it is the Democrats who are committing fraud and corrupting the election process.

The DNC is now under the control of the most dishonest people I have ever seen in my life who have created so much false hate for our president that it will continue long into his second term. I'm sure there will be more rational thinking in Congress but even there, some subscribe to this hysteria. Those on the far left have had their false impression of Bush reinforced by the DNC for the past two years and I'm certain, they believe it to be God's own truth (Opps, I forgot, they hate God too). Bush winning this election will only cause them to hate him more and even now, many of them are already out of their minds with rage. Lawrence O'Donnell was a good example of that last night when he flew into a fit of rage against John O’Neill on MSNBC's Scarborough Country.

I believe this DNC inspired rage is at the boiling point now and I don't like what I see ahead if intelligent Democrats don't get their party under control and out of the hands of the radical left propagandists in charge now. This worries me allot and all rational Americans should be concerned about it.

One of my main concerns is that what we are seeing here is the influence of Communism in America as the Democrats are leaning more and more toward the Marxist doctrine. It's no secret that this is precisely the intent of Communist Party and has been ever since the start of the cold war. The Democrat party has taken a huge leap in that direction in recent years and I don't think that happened by accident or because it's what Democrats really want. Their support for this Marxism is coming primarily from the ignorant and uninformed lower class that they depend on so much for votes. Those people who believe they should get everything they want from the government at taxpayer's expense instead of from personal initiative and responsibility. Kerry is playing right into their hands with his proposals of big government spending for domestic, but not defense issues, and higher taxes on those who pay them to support those who don't.

Now some might think this sounds like a good idea, Americans taking care of Americans, but that's not what this country was founded on and it's not what made us strong or what this country is. Of course Americans will always take care of Americans in need but we are a capitalist country that is built on free enterprise and personal responsibility, not government imposed socialism which is what the current leaders of the DNC are trying to do. Their socialist agenda would destroy what our country is and make more Americans dependent on government for their survival thus increasing the power of the Democrat Party. It would drastically reduce commerce and raise unemployment to levels equal to the 20% plus they have in France and elsewhere in Europe. Without profit, there is no incentive to work and progress economically for most people, and socialism takes away the profit motivation that drives our country.

The current Democrat leadership is just heading in the wrong direction for America today in both the economy and defense. They just don't seem to understand the world we face today and the challenges we have to overcome. They pander for votes by offering to give away other people's money to those who are willing to take it. The Constitution was written to specifically prevent this sort of thing from happening when it assigned specific powers to the branches of government and allowed for taxation to fund those specific things only. Socialism was not included in the Constitution but Democrats seem to have forgotten that or simply don't care anymore.

The time has come for all Americans to take a stand against this perversion of our Constitution and corruption of our society. The Democrat party cannot be allowed to regain power in America until they change their leadership and agenda back to the founding principles of the Constitution and United States of America. A sovereign nation that follows in the footsteps of Europe, with allegiance to foreign and international governing bodies who support our enemies views, is not the right direction for America. We are the world’s leading nation and we should act like it whether France and the UN approves or not. It is not our purpose to do the bidding of the United Nations, but to lead the free world toward freedom, liberty, and democracy. If the UN chooses to join us in this effort they are welcome but we must not let them stand in our way and dictate to us. God bless the United States of America and the Republic for which it stands.