[Austin Willard Wright]

You don't know what happens behind the scenes either but my attitude is to be skeptical of those who say we should "trust" our leaders no matter what, especially when they claim to have the right to wage war without permission from Congress.

Of course, Hussein is an evil dicator. However, in contrast to radical fundamentalist regimes there is a relative equality for women (equality of misery if you will) in that they have more equal rights in divorce, do not have to wear the veil, can teach and hold government positions, etc. All of this is an anathma to Bin Laden. Do you disagree or are you one of those who claim that Hussein and Bin Laden have the same fundamentalist views?

Your "let's bomb Pearl Harbor before they do" premptive strategy is unAmerican and a betrayal of the ideals of the founding fathers. America was supposed to be different than the swaggering militarist empires of Europe. You want to make us a mirror image. Three cheers for empire and world policing eh?

[tabsternager]

If Hussein is harboring al Qaeda terrorists, then Bush already has permission from Congress.

You should take a look at history. In WWII we didn't win by defense. We didn't just kick Germany out of France and Japan out of the Pacific and left it at that. We had a choice: to go all the way or revisit the problem later. Unfortunately, we didn't learn from history when we kicked Hussein out of Kuwait. We must now go all the way with al Qaeda too and that includes all countries which are knowingly harboring them.

To say that Hussein can't really be in alliance with al Qaeda because Muslim fundamentalism is anathema to him is like saying that Hitler would never side with the Russians because he hated communism and communists. People of that ilk are opportunists first.