[Elspode]

Rucita, no offense meant here, but you seen pretty much incapable of humor in relation to any of this.

I might suggest that you would do more to enlighten your fellow man by the application of good humor to a nasty situation that you really aren't empowered to change in any significant way.

Many of us here are ambivalent about the situation in Iraq. We see the necessity for the actions our government has taken, but we abhor wars because, well, they are abhorrent. Injured children do not make anyone here proud nor happy. Ruined lives are not a good thing, but they are an *unavoidable* thing when a despot refuses to leave power quietly.

No one here is trying to justify, rationalize or moralize the hideous suffering inflicted on the innocents in Iraq, but I would suggest that you point the finger of blame at the reason we are there, and not at the fact that we are doing what really, really needs to be done.

If Saddam's own people had overthrown him, many would have suffered, and much more so than they are suffering at the hands of our military. We are at least *trying* to minimize civilian casualties. Saddam's forces aren't even doing that. They weren't even trying to minimize civilian casualties when there was no war.

War sucks, we all known it. Now, can we discuss the need for the action and not the results? Or at least, can we discuss the possible long term benefits instead of the immediate carnage?

There was going to be carnage no matter what happened or who perpetrated it. I suggest that, in the long run, we may very well be saving lives in Iraq.