Call me a traitor, for I have switched sides

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
I have an idea. Instead of forcing our young kids to go fight our wars for us, lets make the military 100% voluntary. Then only people who volunteer to fight for us will be in harms way. I think this idea could work. Like it?

[/ QUOTE ]

Absolutely.

But you realize that volunteer means NOT getting a compensation or a salary for it!

When you are a volunteer fireman or a lifeboat crewman, you are supposed to get a uniform (at best) and expenses (at best) and not become a civil servant drawing a salary every month.

A lot of people cannot see the difference between "volunteer" and "mercenary". Today's professional armies are not "volunteer armies"; they are mercenary armies -- hence, all those soldier statements about this being "there job", et cetera. They are right. It's a job.

So, yeah, absolutely, let's have volunteer armies everywhere, where all the citizens will be free to vote on the merits of every specific call to action by the government with their feet -- or their guns, as the case will be.

[JackWhite]

[ QUOTE ]
a liberal immigration policy.

[/ QUOTE ]

You recommend a liberal immigration policy. Don't we have that already? Virtually anybody can get here who wants to come, legal or not. Plus, how would that keep us safer? Allowing more people in would seem to put us at greater risk of allowing in terrorists. I would think restricting immigration might make it easier to defend the country.

I wouldn't call you a traitor. You've just changed your mind. And, IMO, you've demonstrated the mindset of so many Americans of today. If the problem takes more than 30 minutes to 14 days to solve, hell, just muck it.

[nicky g]

" Al Qaeda had camps in the north of Iraq which produced the near catastrophe of the Ricin poisoning of London; which was foiled by intelligence agents of Britain."

I'm glad you switched sides but seriously - those "al Qaeda" (not really, but regardless) camps were in areas of Iraq that were, thanks to the no-fly zones, independent of Iraqi government control; and the "ricin plot" turned out to be completely imaginary: no ricin was ever found, no evidence was ever presented that linked the "ricin" conspirators to Iraq, none of them were convicted on ricin related charges, and the only deadly use of ricin is to inject it directly into people.

[John Ho]

You are against the war for mostly the wrong reasons. Credibility is something that takes years to build and is quickly gone. Bush has destroyed our credibility with the world by his bungling of just about everything. When you tell people you are invading another country for a very specific reason you better be right.

It's amazing to me how much people freak out over terrorism. We are in more danger from crazy Americans going postal on a subway than we are from foreign terrorist. You're more likely to die from a drunk driver than by terrorists. You're more likely to die from heart disease due to a poor diet than by suicide bombers. All it took was a few crazy rednecks to carry out the Oklahoma City bombings. And they didn't need funding from a foreign multi-millionaire to do it. As an Asian-American I am in more danger of getting killed by a bunch of racist punks than I am from foreign terrorists.

If these conditions change I may be perfectly willing to live in a less open society to gain more security. But a few attacks by a group which is now on everyone's radar is not gonna worry me one bit as I live my life.

[wiseheart]

We have torutured, raped, and killed innocent
people and this has been documented. We provided
Hussein with the only 'mass' weapons he had which
were chemical weapons that he used against Iran.
We have a secret police at home that puts people
in jail and they disappear, no lawyers, no trial,
nothing. Funny, I thought that was what we were
blaming Saddam for. Bush says, Iraq is a now a
breeding ground for terrorists. Thats funny, it
wasn't four years ago. The terrorists who hit the
WTC and Pentagon came from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, etc.
none from Iraq.

And most importantly, this could have all been done
much faster and efficiently at the end of the first
gulf war, but Daddy Bush left the rebels to die under
Saddam... Im amazed how long you war supporters hold
on under your idealistic visions.