Bush's Faith

[Guest greenfaux]

Why don't I see any posts about Bush's faith? I think it is something worth examinining since he claims to be born again. While no one but the Lord can judge his inner life, I think we have to take a close look at his actions and ask ourselves if we want him as our leader. Do his actions match up with his words?

I have never gotten heavily involved in a presidential election. But I feel compelled to get seriously involved in this election and to write this long-winded post because I feel that something has gone wrong with the direction this country is headed under the current administration.

I feel that this election is not just about Democrat versus Republican. Believe me, I had my issues with Bill Clinton, but this time the issue is not sexual infidelity. The issues that concern me today are the human suffering, naive public policy, distortion of truth, and rigidity that I believe has come to define the behavior of the current administration.

Let me say from the start, I do not share the opinion of those who say that Mr. Bush is an evil or bad person. I honestly believe that if you sat down to dinner with him and his family he would be a charming host. I would imagine that he has tried to be a good father to his children and a good husband as well. However, after closely following this presidency for the last 3 years, I've come to the conclusion that he is unqualified for the incredibly demanding position he was elected to. This position requires someone who has a rare quality that is not talked about much these days - wisdom. And I have to say that his actions to date (and the actions of those he has surrounded himself with) have done little to convince me that he has this essential quality.

As I am writing this, 820 Americans have been killed in Iraq with more perishing each week, thousands of American soldiers have been maimed for life, and estimates of Iraqi civilians killed in the conflict range from 4,000 to 10,000, with additional thousands of Iraqis maimed for life. For up to date data on those killed go to:

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/

Before I go any further, I would like to ask you to reflect on the meaning of these people's lives. Too often I am numbed by the numbers of those killed and wounded in this conflict as they are routinely reported in the media. I have to force myself to reflect: For every life lost, there is a father and mother who have had their precious son or daughter ripped from their lives. Often there is a young child that will never know their killed father or mother or have been robbed of a parent's active participation in their life by a debilitating wound or lost limbs. These are not just nameless, faceless people - these people, American and Iraqi alike, had lives, dreams, wishes, careers, and contributions to their communities and the world that will never be realized.

I am not against war in all circumstances. For those of you who were around at the time of the second world war, unlike me you were witness to a time when war was a necessary evil. Americans and the citizens from many nations willingly agreed that it was worth their lives to protect future generations from Hitler's rule. War, and the grim price payed by those who endure the unimaginable hell it requires was the right thing to do at that time. However, the situation in Iraq, has proven not to be such a necessary evil.

I am not suggesting that the United States cut and run. We cannot do that now. We have opened the floodgates to the horror that Iraq has become and must try to repair that country, which may turn out to be an impossible task. What I am suggesting is that the reasons given by the Bush administration for going to war were unfounded, the manner in which this war has been waged was wrong, the actions of the Bush administration in attempting to silence its opponents and critics is wrong, and the war in Iraq as a deterrent to terrorism has backfired leaving the United States and its allies much less safe from terrorism now than before the war. For these reasons, I believe it would be a huge mistake to re-elect this President.

After the horror of September 11, 2001 the country rose in one voice to say "This attack was wrong, and the people who did this must be stopped." The whole world joined in this refrain, and there was practically no nation who did not feel that they and their way of life also had been attacked - even a leading French newspaper declared that "today we are all Americans." Although I did not personally lose a loved one in the attack, a few of my friends barely escaped with their lives, some of them with great trauma, and I know some whose friends and relatives perished in Manhattan on that day.

When the President led this country into war to route out the Al Queda criminals that we learned were responsible for this attack, again we had the full support of the United States' allies and much of the world. While I have to say I had a problem with the manner in which the war was waged, it would be hard to say that the actions of this President were out of bounds as measured against traditional US responses to provocation. But very soon after this war was winding down, plans were already in place for another war, plans that had been in the making even before 9/11.

In my opinion, this President missed a golden opportunity after 9/11. He had the full support of the American people and world. Any number of initiatives that the President could have introduced would have been met with glowing approval. He could have said, "My fellow Americans. After we find and destroy the Al Queda network of terrorist camps in Afghanistan, we are going to embark on a new direction that will end forever our entanglement with the Middle East. As of today, the United States is formally ending its reliance on oil. No longer will we post troops around the MIddle East to protect our interests there, angering the people of that region. No longer will our country's economy be at the mercy of another's country's whim to raise or lower oil prices. From this day forward, the United States will engage in an all out war on energy dependence. We will invest huge sums of money and manpower to develop wind, solar and hydro-electric energy to its fullest. We will grow enough corn to make ethanol the fuel of the future. We will develop fuel efficient bio-diesel, hydrogen and electric powered cars. We will build a state of the art mass transit system that will be the envy of the world. We will put America back to work, and in one fell swoop end forever our reliance on this unstable and often hostile region. How much will this cost us? Hundreds of billions of dollars. But this is an investment in our children's future. Join me in this cause." Mr. Bush could have said something like this, but instead he chose to lead this country into an ill considered, ill planned, and ill executed war that has killed hundreds of Americans, thousands of Iraqi civilians, cost hundreds of billions of dollars, and has exponentially increased the danger to the United States from terrorist attacks.

If our reasons for going to war in Iraq would have been sound, I would not be writing this post. However, from the beginning I was suspicious of the administration's stated reasons because these reasons changed from month to month. The primary reason for war shifted in importance from weapons of mass destruction to the war on terror to removing an evil dictator from power to liberating the Iraqi people for humanitarian reasons.

When a few missiles were found and gradually destroyed, the UN weapons inspectors were ridiculed for even negotiating with a corrupt regime. When the Iraqis turned over thousands of document to try to prove that they had no weapons, this too was immediately dismissed as a ruse. The Secretary of State, Colin Powell made an appearance before the UN, where he gave his now infamous speech warning of chemical and biological dangers that Iraq was waiting to unleash on the US. A speech that he now regrets and admits was based on wrong conclusions.

And probably most significant of all was the theme of nuclear threat, which became an often repeated reason for us to stop this terrible threat. Fear was conjured up again and again by the president and his cabinet by mention of a "mushroom cloud" and other nuclear horrors that awaited us if we did not remove Saddam. The President trumpeted this nuclear threat in his State of the Union speech of 2003. Later it was learned that even though the administration knew the evidence this information was based on was forged, someone "forgot" to edit it from this most watched and covered speech. (And as you may know, Ambassador Joseph Wilson announced this forgery in an article in the media after trying repeatedly to get the government to come clean on this illusion of a nuclear threat. After he did this, his wife, who was a CIA agent, was outed by a "senior administration official" who contacted several news outlets to leak this vital information, putting her life and the lives of those in her operations in danger. Her mission? Investigating illicit markets in WMD. George Bush Sr. recently said that anyone who would reveal the identity of a CIA agent is "the most insidious of traitors." This is still under investigation, and many others who have come out against the administration have done so at the risk of their reputations and careers.)

These "imminent threats" were mentioned so often in the same breath as Al Queda that even though the President later admitted there being no link between Iraq and 9/11, as late as September of 2003 seventy percent of the public believed such a link truly existed, and this percentage is still high, notwithstanding the facts. A large percentage of people also think that Iraqis were among the 9/11 hijackers when in fact there were no Iraqis among them. The majority were Saudi nationals but the President still tries to maintain the Iraq/Al Queda connection today. In a speech on 4/30/04 he said that Iraq was "an ally of Al Queda." (A little research on Al Queda will show that Osama bin Laden hated Iraq's secular brand of Islam, and from Iraq's side, Saddam was a fanatic when it came to power and never was willing to share it with anyone, even Al Queda. One of the primary reasons for the birth of Al Queda was the anger of impoverished and disenfranchised Saudi's over the presence of American military bases in Saudi Arabia, which by the way is a dictatorship (that teaches Saudi children that all other nations are infidels) and "friend" of the Bush administration. Osama bin Laden was able to tap into that anger, recruiting and brainwashing hundreds of Saudis. The war in Iraq has made bin Laden's job easier, and it has been reported that now even moderate Muslims the world over are now becoming sympathetic to his cause. And I don't need to tell you what the photographs of the Iraqi prisoner abuse has done for the Al Queda cause and how it has completely blown away the security of Americans the world over.)

Throughout all this campaign leading up war, it was repeated over and again that this first-time-ever preemptive war was necessary because Iraq was an imminent threat. We could not wait for diplomacy or other less radical measures to work because Iraq was poised to attack the United States.

I have to go off on a tangent here for a moment, to illustrate what I perceive as practice endemic to this administration. It is a practice of spinning history to suit present political necessity. In this instance, early this year you began to hear the administration's spokespeople say something very odd: that they had never said that the threat from Iraq was imminent and thereby should be absolved from the claim that they were overstating the threat. In January of this year White House spokesman Scott McClellan criticized the administration's opponents, saying, "Some in the media have chosen to use the word 'imminent'. Those were not words we used." In March of this year, Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense appeared on the TV show Face the Nation and claimed that no one had ever said this. The question and his answer:

SCHIEFFER: Well, let me just ask you this. If they did not have these weapons of mass destruction, though, granted all of that is true, why then did they pose an immediate threat to us, to this country?

Sec. RUMSFELD: Well, you're the--you and a few other critics are the only people I've heard use the phrase `immediate threat.' I didn't. The president didn't. And it's become kind of folklore that that's--that's what's happened.

I saw this interview, and when I see this type of thing happening it makes me feel crazy. Because I was a news addict in the months leading up the war and I distinctly remember that this was the language used. In this case however, Secretary Rumsfeld was set-up by the Face the Nation interviewer, who then read two quotes of the Secretary's where he said just that. At the end of this post are those quotes, along with similar quotes by the White House spokesman mentioned above and others from the administration that I found after a little research. About 30 quotes, and those were just the ones I could find. So I was not crazy after all.

From what I have observed, this administration is a very tightly run ship. I think everyone on the political scene would agree that every syllable that comes from this administration is vetted, so they can all stay on message all the time. This is a good quality to have, except when you later want to recant what you've said. So I have to ask you: Why would the administration send out its chief spokespeople to say that no one had ever claimed Iraq was an imminent threat? Someone please tell me.

So as we now all know, no "500 tons" of chemical weapons were ever found, no chemical weapon delivery missiles were ever found, no link to Al Queda was ever established, no nuclear program was ever found, and it turns out that Saddam's minions were bilking him by receiving funding for weapons programs that never existed. He was all bark and no bite and our military rolled over him with ease. So why did we go to war with Iraq? I honestly have no idea. If the argument is made that Iraq is the primary front in the war against terror, then the United States has failed miserably in that front. Indeed, mistake after mistake in the war and occupation has surely caused a flurry of new volunteers to enlist with radical terror groups.

There were people in the administration who foresaw what was to come in Iraq, and many leaders of the Middle East nations saw what was to come. President Mubarak of Egypt warned that if the US invaded Iraq it would create 100 new bin Ladens. The primary intelligence that the administration relied on came from exiled Iraqis who had not even lived in the country for 35 years, and even the former US ambassador to Iraq under the elder Bush was not consulted. For some reason, the administration chose to believe that the US would be welcomed with flowers into Iraq. I'm no Iraq or military buff, but even a little reading on the subject caused me to be deeply concerned about what war with Iraq would mean. I learned that the country was a potential hornet's nest with three separate and antagonistic religious factions. I learned that no matter the outcome, invading an Islamic country which had a long history of being invaded and occupied by the West was sure to enflame anti-American sentiment among Islamic fundamentalists - the chief financiers of Al Queda. I learned that without the iron hand of Saddam to keep these three groups under control, chaos and civil war would eventually tear the country apart. But no one has put it quite so succinctly as President Bush's own father:

"Extending the war into Iraq would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Exceeding the U.N.'s mandate would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."

-- From "Why We Didn't Remove Saddam"

by George Bush [sr.] and Brent Scowcroft, Time Magazine, 1998

Why didn't the President listen to all these warnings, or to the world-wide outpouring of the largest peacetime anti-war protests in history? Again, I have no idea. It is well known that this President has firm resolve, but resolve disconnected from wisdom is a dangerous thing. An example of this disconnect is a small but telling incident that happened the week of March 22. Mr. Bush was speaking at a dinner for the Washington press corps. This dinner is traditionally one where the current President gives a speech where he pokes fun at himself, but Mr. Bush chose to make fun of his inability to find weapons of mass destruction. My wife and I watched in horror when we viewed a tape of this event on TV. Laughter filled the room when Mr. Bush displayed a slide showing him down on his hands and knees looking under furniture in his office and saying, "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere ... nope, no weapons over there ... maybe under here?" I find it inconceivable that he would make such a joke when thousands of lives have been shattered and continue to be shattered because of Mr. Bush's infamous resolve to invade Iraq. I wonder how funny Mr. Bush's joke is to the soldier who has lost his legs, or to the mother whose son's unrecognizable remains have been returned to her for burial.

Let's say for argument's sake that the war in Iraq was an absolutely last resort, which it wasn't. I know that Iraq had defied numerous UN resolutions, and Saddam was known to be a corrupt and evil man, but we're talking about a massive military action and occupation, not a trade embargo. If this was the case, wouldn't you first want to:

a. Get the support of the nations in the region. Saddam had virtually no friends in the surrounding countries, but why not take months or even a year to persuade them that Saddam has to go and then enlist their help?

b. Get the support of the rest of the world. Again, not easy, but over time we could have persuaded most if not all nations to back us up. Forget about WMD - humanitarian issues alone eventually could have rallies at least some support.

We all had reason to hope that the President would do his best to nail down points a, & b above. After all, in his debates with Vice President Al Gore, Mr. Bush practically vowed he would:

Q: What is the role of the U.S. in the world?

Bush: "I

[ted]

Hey, greenfaux. Welcome to the boards!

President Bush's "Christianity" is between him and God, not us. Just because he publicly states his belief in Christ, doesn't give anyone the authority to debate the issue.

It seems that you gave alot of the reasons to justify going into Iraq by using the correct quotes by the administration. All of those things they were saying were agreed upon by the UN and most Dems anyway, at the time. Remeber the House, Senate and Numerous UN assembly votes? If my history is correct, they all voted FOR the use of force in Iraq. Remember, this is a war on terrorism, not just Afganistan. That means wherever the terrorists are, and the countries that provide support for them, AND those countries that threaten the US and its' allies. Is there any doubt in your mind what Sadaam would do when (not if) armed with nuclear weapons?

I invite you to stay strong in these times. I have seen what Bush will do in the face of danger. What I have'nt seen is what position Kerry will take, if any. He has stated that he would go back and do whatever the UN would have him do in these situations (paraphrased). How has that worked, so far? You would really prefer nations at the top of the UN such as Sudan run the war on terrorism?

Things are tough right now, indeed. May we have the strength to carry on and win against those that would see to our demise.

t.

[Guest LadyC]

first of all, bush's faith is attacked in every single thread that has been started about him. just because one doesn't have a title about his faith, doesn't mean he isn't attacked, daily, around here.

As I am writing this, 820 Americans have been killed in Iraq with more perishing each week, thousands of American soldiers have been maimed for life, and estimates of Iraqi civilians killed in the conflict range from 4,000 to 10,000, with additional thousands of Iraqis maimed for life. For up to date data on those killed go to:

it's a war! people die. the number of casualties in this war is only a fraction of the number of deaths in any other war in history.

If our reasons for going to war in Iraq would have been sound, I would not be writing this post.

the reasons were, and are sound. there has been overwhelming indisputible evidence that saddam was funding, harboring, and training al qaeda members. unfortunately, this gets buried by the media and ignored by the liberals.

thanks for all the quotes by the bush administration which "sell the imminant threat". now, before i leave you with a bunch of quotes by the democrats who also sold the imminant threat, which i HOPE you'll take the time to read, let me remind you that the primary reason we went into iraq was because saddam violated 17 resolutions to either disarm or provide documented proof that he had, and he absolutely refused to do either. both liberals and conservatives were left with no other conclusion to draw but that they still existed, and i believe they still do. the liberals only changed their mind and decided they must not when it became politically convenient for them to try to brainwash america into thinking they never believed it in the first place.

Subject: Official Political Records don't

lie........

Develop weapons of mass destruction and the

missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line." - President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass

destruction program." - President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998

Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear,

chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest

security threat we face." - Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten time

since 1983." - Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb,18,1998

"We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S.

Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate,

air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction

programs." - Letter to President Clinton, signed by

Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI),

Tom Daschle (D-SD),

John Kerry( D - MA),

and others Oct. 9,1998

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." -

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998

"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass

destruction and palaces for his cronies." -

Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999

"There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons

programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs

continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of an illicit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will

threaten the United States and our allies." -

Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,)

and others, December 5, 2001

"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass

destruction and the means of delivering them." -

Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002

"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical

weapons throughout his country." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to

deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is

in power." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." -

Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002

"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are

confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and

biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to

build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence

reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..."

Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority

to use force-if necessary-to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." -

Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002

"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years ... We also should remember we

have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."-

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002

"He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years,

every >significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do" - Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that

Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including

al Qaeda members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked,

Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." -Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002

"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass estruction." - Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002

"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal,

murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime .. He presents a

particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to

miscalculation . And now he is miscalculating America's response to his

continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction...So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of

mass destruction is real" -

Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003

These are all matter of Public Record and can be verified. The very people who are now calling the President a liar, are the very people who supplied him information to rely upon.

[Ovedya]

Only one man has ever walked the earth free from sin. The religious leaders and heathen leadership took that man, beat Him, spit on Him, brought Him into open shame, and killed Him in the most horrible and painful way known at that time.

Every other man's efforts at perfection pale to invisibility in comparison to Jesus Christ.

[catlover]

Isn't it peculiar that the same liberals that attack US soldiers as sadistic thugs and baby killers suddenly start wringing their hands when one of these soldiers is killed. But then a dead soldier is a useful stick to beat Pres Bush with. Too bad the liberals and the media don't show the same appreciation to the soldiers when they are alive as they do when they die!

Edited June 4, 2004 by catlover

[Guest greenfaux]

Ted,

Thanks for the welcome. Wow - 466 posts by you. Now here's a man who likes to talk!

Ted, I can't debate the President's beliefs, but just as I would seriously check out a pastor for a long period of time before I joined his/her church, all of us DO have the authority and even more important, the responsibility to decide if this most worldly-powerful Christian has the qualifications to lead us.

The fact that the congress gave the President authority to use force does not exonerate him from the fact that serious mistake after mistake was made. If the US government were a corporation and the C-level officers made as many egregious errors as Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, et al. had made, heads should have rolled by this time and a shake-up at every level of the company would have been made. Instead, all those mistakes have been consistently ignored and denied. In addition, congress authorized the use of force as a last resort (which every military man I've ever heard speak on this issue has firmly rejected the idea that it was a last resort situation) and under the false impression pumped up and slanted by the administration and the British government that Iraq was poised to attack us at any second.

The President claimed that Iraq could not account for massive stockpiles of biological weapons, citing a prominent Iraqi defector who actually had contradicted Bush

[Work in Progress]

But then a dead soldier is a useful stick to beat Pres Bush with.

I couldn't agree more. I'd have a lot more respect for them, and be more inclined to believe they were sincere if they showed the same "horror" at the thousands of tragic and gruesome deaths of the victims of regime's like Saddam Husseins. So........for now, it just comes across to me like opportunism. Blech.

[Guest LadyC]

so, let me get this straight... you claim to question bush's faith and leadership, yet you're willing to vote for a man who intentionally killed innocent civilians during his four months of serving as commander of the swift boat, a man who has emphatically told pro-abortionists that he would support abortion, including partial birth abortions, who can't open his mouth without spitting out a lie or contradiction, and who inadvertantly supports the rights of gays to marry? i question your motives...

by the way, i notice you didn't comment on all the democratic quotes i posted. instead you pointed out to ted that we're supposed to take the word of some defector from saddam's camp that the weapons were destroyed, despite the fact that absolutely no evidence was shown. you are so busy defending the "only as a last resort" thing that i just have to ask.... how many chances must someone be given before it's considered a last resort? the murderous saddam had 17 resolutions over 11 years.... and still he refused to comply.

[Guest greenfaux]

to LadyC - You are correct that in war people die. What I am arguing is that it was not necessary in this case to have such a war, and an ill planned war at that. BTW, did you volunteer to go?

Thanks for all those quotes. However, many of the statements made were under the influence of information provided by the Bush administration. And I love it when people quote officials of the previous administration. They did not rush into war.

You said, "The very people who are now calling the President a liar, are the very people who supplied him information to rely upon." So all those people you quoted above supplied the President with the information he needed to go to war with? Huh? See my second post above to learn where he got his information from.

Please refer me to where I can read the "overwhelming indisputible evidence that saddam was funding, harboring, and training al qaeda members." I would like to see it. Bin Laden hated Iraq's secular brand of Islam. Here's a quote for you by President Bush: "We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th" attacks"

And why do you think I'm a liberal? I'll bet we share more positions than we differ on.

I'm glad you took time to read the "imminent threat" quotes. But you didn't answer my question: Why would the administration send out its chief spokespeople to say that no one had ever claimed Iraq was an imminent threat?

to Catlover - I don' recall saying that US soldiers are "sadistic thugs and baby killers". Supporting our troops means not sending them into harm's way if it isn't necessary. And is there something wrong with wanting prison abuse to stop, or are you saying that it's a good thing?

If you would like to see what this Administration is doing for our soldiers, check this out:

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.as...J8OVF&b=83995#2

[Guest charlie]

President Bush's "Christianity" is between him and God, not us. Just because he publicly states his belief in Christ, doesn't give anyone the authority to debate the issue.

Did you all have the same attitude toward President Clinton when he was in office?

FTR - I couldn't stand President Clinton, I voted for Pres. Bush......but, impo, neither are Godly men. I think they (especially pres. Bush) tries to manipulate Christians in order to promote his agenda.