[Barry the Sprout]

I am not going to quote your post Silver Cheetah because it was a long one but I agreed with everything on it. It actually made me think about the way me and my friends joked about Bush when he was elected. 1500 dead and nothing to show for it - the homour is now wearing thin. I also don't beleive Osama is still in Afghanistan, why on earth would he stay and it is not as if there aren't places for him to go and hide. He knew that this war was going to happen some time and he is calling the shots. He has this on his own terms and it is not him getting killed. As Sun Tzu said (I can't remember the exact wording so please don't get angry if I am wrong) "If your enemy is arrogant then provoke him.".

In vietnam the US had a kill rate of 100 people for every solider dead, but the war was considered lost. Why? Because it didn't acheive its objectives. This war will equally fail to acheive its objectives. Already the deadline for it to finish has extended to 40 years, a good legacy for our grandchildren in my view. This is basically giving carte blanche to Bush and Blair to do what they like and kill who they like. If they have nothing to show for it then they can claim that "Rome wasn't built in a day" or similar. They will never acheive this objective, instead a lot of people will be killed.

The only thing I don't agree with in your post is the emphasis on Bush as an instigator. As brits it is possibly a bit easy for us to forget Blair's role in this but he is a lot more than 100% behind Bush. He is right up there with him every step of the way. He has already been described as the attack dog of the west and it is suprisingly true, what with his visits all over. We have a duty to protest against him as well as Bush.

BTW Silver Cheetah, there is a big anti war demo in London on the 18th. We need all the people we can get if you are intrested...