"The NSA isn’t listening to you talk to your wife about picking up a loaf of bread on the way home."

"But they are! The NSA are also listen in on you talk to your lover - or your boss - or whomever. They are supposed to listen to most everything and then filter out the noise and stick to the juice. And with PATRIOT, it only gets worse. So if you think that there is not enormous room for abuse here, you are mistaken."

You are correct on every point. Although I think they hear every call you make on your cell phone, I would hope they are not listening . I don't like hope as a course of action, but what is the alternative?

"Over 80% of people like me agree that he’s doing a pretty good job based on the military vote in the last election."

If you want only professional soldiers to have the right to vote, just say so. In the meantime, this kind of percentage is as meaningful as the voting proclivities of Blonde American Women."

Only if Blonde American Women had the most recent, hands on experience in the most important issue today.

"You really don’t know anything more than what you read or hear about second hand instead of seeing or touching or feeling it first hand, so keep that in mind when you state your opinion."

No-nonsense Americans, people who are siding with the military first and looking at the question second, experts such as Melvin Laird, ex-Sec of Defense during Vietnam's most ferocious phase, or Zbigniew Brzezinky, ex-NSC chief and extreme anti-Soviet, or Henry Kissinger, a known war criminal, are not exactly saying kind things about the war that Bush is conduting! From one perspective or others, it is being suggested, with very delicate words, that the war is a huge SNAFU. And these are folks who are genuinely interested in America advanncing its interests in the world and strengthening its security. These guys are all enthusiastic imperialists!

You choose to discount such input, and others' like them, that's your prerogative. I'd say you're perhaps too close to the action to see the big picture but then perhaps you'd flame me. (Perhaps literally. ) "

I was a bit harsh in the way my closing sounded. I respect everyones right to an opinion and to state that opinion. But in my opinion, it is an opinion that is incomplete from a lack of hands on experience with terrorists. I don't discount it out of hand, I just know something else and have a different perspective.

I can assure you, a lot of the analysis I see on TV or read in the news is so fundementally flawed that its laughable. I think the one question we all need to ask ourselves is "do we really want to win this thing or not?" Clearly we disagree on the stakes we are fighting for. I think a lot of the posters who say we are not fighting for national survival think that winning is a given. Its not. And the consequences of losing impacts our ability to discuss the right and wrong of any subject.

If we stop fighting the war, it will still be fought against us.