Ok, I'll answer your questions Kevin but first a few notes. You may think that all these people David, Roger, EEE, MJG, and all the rest (including me of course) are just beating you up here because we're all "left wing" and we just want to play "get the righty"...if that is what you believe I just want to say you are sadly mistaken.

As I read through what everyone was saying it struck me that every single person that responded to you had different and valid points to make. They were all civil in doing so too. The thing is though, it was also clear that talking to you is not a one man job. At least I couldn't do it alone. The simple fact is there is so much you seem to be leaving out, don't know, don't understand, or have made up, that it's hard to know where to begin a response to you.

So, unless I want to devote myself full time to typing up explanations of our current situation, our history, all the who's, what's, where's...plus adding in stuff about the bible and general philosophy...well, the fact is I need everyone's help here. I don't have all the answers and I don't know everything and I certainly don't have enough time to try and spill out all the contents of my head for you here.

I do have plenty to say...that's true...and I've got a lot of words...and I'm sorry for causing you such discomfort with them. I don't intend to be evil with them. There's no malice behind what I'm saying or, that I can see, behind what anyone else is saying to you. You just plain seem to have missed the boat or intentionally just did not get on it when it comes to a rather wide variety of information.

Then there is that other major stumbling block when we are trying to have a discussion...you don't believe any info I put on the table and believe that the media is working for John Kerry. So, because some of my information may have come out of the New York Times, Boston Globe (owned by the NY Times), or Washington Post...well it's all not valid because the media doesn't tell the truth...they lie...to help John Kerry and to destroy George Bush. Well, that's convenient because it means that you can dismiss any and all info I present or the media presents to protect your rather narrow and uninformed view of the world. It leaves me and everyone else here at a rather large disadvantage because whereas we try to present what we see as the facts of the situation...and some of us go out of our way to try and be better informed...you need only wave your hand and say "All left wing media lies." and provide no information to back up what you're saying. You just KNOW what's true. Photos, evidence, files, testimony, people who have worked with and inside this administration...it doesn't matter what comes out...what is said...who did what...all of it is some left wing media hoax. 

What could I or anyone else say to that? For you Kevin...there's only what you want to believe. All that being said I will...like a fool...continue.

Before I answer your questions though I just want to give credit to two people that said things that...well...stunned me...because they suddenly hit home with me and made me see something I had missed or just rang so true.

The first is Roger who called you an energy vampire. I read that and thought "That's it!" because I feel so damn drained after reading your posts. You just seem so lost it's painful. After reading one of them yesterday I just said "Fuck it" and went out and sat in the sun and watched cherry blossom petals drift from the tree to the grass below. The neighbors cat swatting at them as they fell and me in my adirondack chair slowly draining a six pack of beer. As I sat there I thought...I understand it all. All the things Kevin is saying. From my chair here...the green grass and the cherry tree...the cat so peaceful and content swatting flower petals...and booze at work unwinding and loosening up all the muscles in my head...well...it's true you know...the world is such a beautiful place...the creation of a loving God...a God that wants us to revel in the beauty and goodness he has given us...and then the demons in the alcohol broke loose and began to swirl about in my rather pathetic excuse of a mortal mind...and I thought about all the people that were being tortured and raped and killed at this very second while I sat in the sun surrounded by flowers and grass and trees...and I leapt from my chair and screamed "Evil! Evil demon thoughts get thee back from my skull! I will not be sucked in by your negativity! Kevin G and his God were right! We should only talk and think about the good! Torture and rape and murder are all beautiful and good things if done in the name of goodness and beauty! If done so that all people can sit and watch a cat play beneath a cherry tree!"

The cat, startled at my screaming, had run off at that point and my wife appeared from the sliding glass door to tell me I'd drank enough for one afternoon. I felt even more drained and the demons in my head had changed my course of thought to how to get more beer without my wife knowing. Anyway, Roger was right about that whole vampire thing.

Second thing was David saying you were confusing Bob Kerrey from Nebraska with John Kerry from Massachusetts. I read that and remembered suddenly, something I had read somewhere about how John Kerry was being accused by Republicans in places on the internet of war crimes. It said that the people that were accusing Kerry kept misspelling his name "Kerrey" and it hit me like a shot...holy shit, David's right, they are using a stupid trick to try to tie what Bob Kerrey did to John Kerry...just by only mentioning the last name and hoping people confuse the two. Yikes! It's really dumb but hell I guess if you're a desperate Republican you take what you can get.

I don't really know if that's what you're doing Kevin because you mentioned the Russert interview. I do know that I've never seen or read or heard anything about John Kerry shooting and killing women and children. The "atrocities" Kerry takes responsibility for in the clip Russert played mention none of that. Yes, he does mention "burning villages"...something that was commonplace in Vietnam and done under direct orders. There were many reasons for doing it. In all honesty I see little difference between this and all the bombing of cities and towns we've done over the years.

Now, on to your questions:

Given the choice would you rather pose for lude pictures as the Iraqi prisoners were made to do or would you rather watch as your home and village was burned and then continue to watch as your family was gunned down?

The thing about a question like this is, at its heart, it's kind of ridiculous. See, this is the sort of lunatic line of questioning you need to resort to because there are no sane arguments from your side of this fiasco. It's not like they gave the Iraqi's a choice between these two things. Who would offer me a choice like this? If the idea is to try to make Kerry look bad...well...this is just dumb. Kerry has never said he did this or been accused of doing it. Anyway, so that I've answered your question I'll go with option A...pose naked for photos. The thing is the way you've downplayed what was done to the prisoners is shameful. This was not fun and games and frat boy jokes. This wasn't you asking your wife to photograph you with her underwear on your head and a cucumber stuck up your ass. These prisoners knew they were surrounded by soldiers that would inflict serious pain or kill them. They could hear the screams of others being hurt or raped...for real...screams of women too...maybe their wives being raped and beaten. Sort of not the same thing as "frat boy hazing"...I'd like to see the people that promote that idea subjected to this kind of treatment and then question them afterwards if they thought it was a "Big fucking deal" to quote you Kevin G the mighty Christian.

Remember, you support Kerry and aren't you also proud of how he served in Vietnam?  Or are you maybe not so proud of his record?  Are you proud of his record? 

I do support Kerry this time out and I don't see any reason not to. As to being "proud" of his record or service to his country...well...that's for Kerry to be proud of. I'm not his friend or a family member so for me to say I was "proud" of him would seem...I don't know...sort of odd to me. I'm happy he has the history he does and it does lead me to believe he's a good candidate for president. Of the people we had to choose from I do think he was the best and most qualified. I think his service in Vietnam serves him well as far as adding to his job qualifications. I think the fact that he's been honest and critical of the war and the actions we took there shows he's not afraid to question what our government does and tries to understand and see different sides to a problem or issue. I think the fact that he included himself when he spoke of "atrocities" shows he's a man that will take full responsibility for his actions and the actions of others and will say "The buck stops here." He will admit his mistakes and try to learn from them. All good qualities in my book. Of course if you are a Republican and Bush supporter I can see why you'd be afraid of these qualities and want to make up lies and distort his record. I say doing that lacks honor though and proves you are an individual that should be held in low regard. George Bush hid from having to go to Vietnam and because he took up a spot in the National Guard that meant that some other poor bastard had to go in his place. Too bad Bush will never know who had to go in his place because he owes that man and his family more than he owes anyone else. I wonder if Bush is proud of that? That goes for Slick Dick Cheney too and all of his "other priorities."

This whole issue in the press with the photos is meant to try and get as much mud to stick to the current administration as possible and you know it.  

No, Kevin...that is simply not true. Only fools and liars would try to sell that rubbish anywhere. It's important that the media inform us of these issues because the idea is to educate the public about the situation there. This way the public...voters...can make informed decisions when they choose who they want to run this country and who they want to vote for. They will understand why the Iraqis are rising up against our soldiers and be able to honestly consider what we are doing there and if we should be there. To bury or hide information from us is quite honestly a far more evil thing to do. It's only purpose is to keep us ignorant, something for some reason you seem to wish to be.

This is a giant pile of bullshit that Republicans keep promoting. That reporting deaths or what goes on there undermines our war effort. That being critical is not patriotic. These are GIANT lies and you and Pat seem to have bought into them hook, line, and sinker. Al-Jeezera is reporting this news and that's who Arabs and Muslims and terrorists in those countries are paying attention to. They don't give a flying fuck what the New York Times prints, or Ted Koppel says. There are countries all over the world with reporters in Iraq that are bringing the news from the frontlines home. They are not sitting in some office somewhere copying articles from the Times and writing down every word Koppel and Rather say. My God, how stupid you have to be to buy into this "the liberal media is our enemy" bullshit. You guys really think the rest of the world waits around to see what our media says? The rest of the world thinks our media is just a bunch of liars promoting the American cause and Israel! They could give a shit what we say.

Terrorists don't give a shit if we protest. We don't demoralize our troops by protesting. You guys have been breathing Karl Rove's toxic fumes way too long. Osama is not sitting around having coffee every morning reading the New York Times. What a fucking fantasy world you guys have going.

The media needs to fill us in when the president makes mistakes or things go wrong where we are fighting. That's how the public can make an informed decision. You see anything and everything as "liberal bias" if it hurts your side. You don't give a shit if it's true. You turn every argument into left vs right...why?

Here's some things to consider:

Hamas issued the first major fatwa against the United States back in 1985. It said, for the most part, that they planned to kill the American infidels by poisoning us with drugs. See, Iran had been working closely with Hamas and other terrorist organizations for years and had told them they could raise a lot of money to fund operations if they got into the drug trade.

At first these fundamentalist Muslim terrorists refused because it's against their religion to sell booze or drugs. Once they saw the amount of money that could be made they bent those rules though. So, a giant network began to be built. Moving drugs from Afghanistan and Pakistan through countries like Uzbekistan into Europe...Belgium was a hub I believe, then onto Canada, Mexico, and into the US.

The cells that began to form in all these countries were at first just to move the drugs. Drug money funded these terrorists. Now, we were not unaware of this. In fact, we used it to our advantage as the CIA could always monitor the operation and manipulate it as they saw fit. We would of course end up with the whole Iran-Contra affair...boys and their toys you know.

In 1988 Al Qaeda was formed. They too jumped into the drug trade. Now, we were not as a people or government looking at the world in terms of terrorism at this time. We saw these guys as small stuff...we were still looking at the world with the Cold War mentality. This seems to be the biggest issue with the current Bush administration and all these PNAC neocons...they have these grand schemes but an old fashioned and ineffective way of looking at them. You may even say a dangerous way.

Declaring "War on Terror" is silly but like the "War on Drugs" it's a nice and memorable slogan. The issue is, these old school Cold Warriors don't seem to understand that it's not the same idea as declaring war on a country. Attacking countries like Iraq at random, for less than obvious reasons, is dangerous and only serves to unite many millions of people in different countries against us.

You can't fight a War on Terror or a War on Drugs with troops of soldiers and "Shock and Awe" tactics. That is a serious fuck up. What you do is give the Al Jeezeras of the world all sorts of shit to broadcast on their six o'clock news that angers loads of people at us really fast.   

See, in the 1990's we began to finally look at terror as a new kind of threat. This was because all of our old enemies were gone...Russia fell apart...the Berlin Wall had come down...it was a whole new world. So, we only had the 90's to begin to look at this. What we found was they had built a hell of a drug network. Then the year 2000 comes and terror is all over our list because the threats are now pouring in like rain. The first thing we realize is we are fucked! Totally compromised. We know our borders have been wide open to the terrorist drug trade...and after World Trade Center 1...well we know this is not going to be fun.

The big issue is we have not had a real wake up call. Stuff like the Cole seems small because in terms of loss of life we aren't talking a lot of people. So, with only really the 8 years of the Clinton administration to look at terror as a real issue...we don't have much of a head start.

Eight years might seem like a long time but when you consider that our government moves with all the speed and purpose of a glacial ice flow...well shit just was not going to get done. This is why I don't believe Bush or Clinton or any one president can take the blame for 9/11.

What I believe Bush deserves full blame for is this insane fiasco he has created with his "War on Terror"...it is a total and complete fuck up.

Here's the thing if Bush wanted to move out his "War on Terror" from Afghanistan to another dangerous country with a shitload of terrorist ties that we knew all about and could prove...he could have chosen Iran...Syria...Pakistan...Uzbekistan...or even Saudi Arabia...all countries with serious terrorist activity and support in place. Plus Iran has helped Al Qaeda and pushed them and Hamas to plan attacks on our soil. Iraq never did that. These guys were pals with Saddam because he was a foe of Iran and fundamentalist Muslims. As far as the United States was concerned Saddam could kill, rape, and torture all the fundamentalist Muslims he wanted. Do we go after Iran though? No.

Instead they blow up this issue with Iraq. Here's what I think is odd. We know Saddam funded terrorist attacks against Israel. He helped the Palestinians on occasion. Truth is we didn't really give a fuck about that and it's hardly even mentioned. We find Israel to be a friend and major pain in our ass at the same time. Funny that we were pals with both Saddam and Israel at the same time at one point huh?

Now, anyone that has any clue about any of what I just talked about (all of which was off the top of my head so go ahead and fact check it for flaws) knows the Bush administration has been bullshitting the whole country and the world about this Iraq stuff from the beginning. I haven't even scratched the surface with what I've wrote about here either. So, why do you persist with supporting these people Kevin?

I'll answer for you...he's against abortion! Fanfuckingtastic. What will you do if you find out Bush paid for his girlfriend to have an abortion in 1970? Will he still be your anti-abortion knight then?