[mrnoodle]

I forgot I had posted in here recently, and now there's too many pages between my bit and the end to dredge it all up again. But I'm curious -- rather than tell us what's wrong with the war Iraq (while ignoring what's right), why won't someone offer an alternative?

In glancing over this thread, I think I've identified what appear to be the opposition's main points:

1. We shouldn't be in Iraq, and the common Iraqi doesn't want us there. Instead, we should all come home and send out individuals to find Osama bin Laden. Once he's caught, the books are balanced for 9/11, and we can resume our pre-9/11 lives
2. Without catching bin Laden, terrorism can't be eliminated, we just have to wait until it goes away.
3. We're just trying to get oil, anything said to the contrary is just a Bush 3-card monte game.
4. Terrorists aren't enemy combatants, they're criminals who should be shuffled through the justice system with the full legal rights and representation of any other criminal.
5. If we would stop doing things to make terrorists mad, they wouldn't bomb us any more. Terrorism doesn't exist unless bred by oppression (specifically, Jew-American), poverty, and lack of opportunity. No one really believes all that jihad nonsense -- they just need to know someone loves them.
6. "Extremist Islam" is a catchphrase designed by the right to justify racism and warmongering. It doesn't exist; if it does exist, it's only in small pockets.
7. We "support" our volunteer military by saying their mission is unjust, their actions in theater are criminal, and their volunteerism is actually ignorance that they are simply pawns for an evil madman.

little editorializing in that last one, but have I hit all the salient points?

Where's the solution? Let's assume that we're wrong in taking the fight to them, rather than sitting back and hoping everything will turn out okay. If a man is born and raised for no other purpose than to serve his God by killing infidels wherever he finds them, do you really think that a roomful of people with powdered wigs can legislate him out of doing it? Really?