I spent the night creating separate plot lines for all the characters in my screenplay, while listening to the talking heads deconstruct the president's speech. I still don't know what I feel about the country going to war with Iraq. I wish there was an easy diplomatic solution, but there isn't one. I've already scenes reports on the Net saying that the Iraqis have started destroying evidence of their activities, and moving everything to the off limits presidential palaces. The Iraqis have proved over and over again that they're not to be trusted, and that they will do everything they can to thwart the UN inspectors. I don't expect their behaviour to change.

With that said, I do agree that Sadam must be contained. But to go in without world or UN approval is not a good thing. I don't think our military is prepared to fight and on the ground house to house war. Too many budget cuts over the years, have decimated the once almighty powerful US military. A military I might add, as evidenced by the Pentagon witnesses before the attack on Afghanistan, is still unprepared as they were in Vietnam, to fight a terrorist style war. My biggest fear is that the cost of war with Iraq will irreperably harm the US economy, as the war in Afghanistan in the 1980's crippled the Soviet economy and hastened the collapse of the communist government. The US won the Cold War by default, because the russian economy tanked. It was not a triumph of democracy as Reagan declared at the fall of the Berln Wall, but a triumph of economic principle. Spend too much money, and you go bankrupt. It applies to individuals as well as countries.

But if we don't go to war, I'm afraid the alternative would be fo us to just sit around and wait for a terrorist to attack us again. And I don't think that's a viable alternative either.

One thing is for sure, whether we fight Iraq or not, the terrorists attacks will never stop. But perhaps what I will say, is that I prefer the country remain in action in the fight against terrorism, and not give into fear or complacency or the naivete that if we just leave other countries alone, they will leave us alone. 9/11 proved that we can no longer remain naive and trust the world like a wide eyed innocent, who thinks that if we're peaceful, we won't be harmed, that if we just stopped making war with other countries, it will solve all our foreign policy problems. NOT!!!!